The Lord Chancellor: Leave of Absence

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, before business begins, may I take the opportunity to inform the House that I will be undertaking a ministerial visit to Dublin on 23 February? Accordingly, I trust that the House will grant me leave of absence.

Driving Offences: Sarah McCaffery

Earl Ferrers: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What was the cost of investigating, apprehending and charging Sarah McCaffery, who was seen driving a car while holding an apple, including the costs of the helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft involved.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the total cost to Northumbria Police was £117. This comprises £50 in police officer time and £67 for a helicopter to carry out a 10-minute diversion to take aerial footage while returning to base from other operational duties. A fixed-wing aircraft was not used at any time in this case. The total cost to the Crown Prosecution Service was £425.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for that Answer, which was as surprising as it was unexpected. Perhaps I should declare an interest in that, invariably, on the way to and from your Lordships' House I eat a sandwich in the car to keep myself awake and prevent an accident.
	That must be the most inexpensive form of helicopter possible; perhaps the noble Baroness will let me know how one can hire it. Does the noble Baroness not agree that this was a farce of gargantuan proportions? All of us, including the police, make asses of ourselves from time to time. Will she give an assurance that the Government will not react by giving the police instructions and diktats on how to perform their operations, when, despite their mistakes, they perform them very well?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, it is a rare occasion for me not to agree with the noble Earl but I regret to say that I do not on this occasion. I shall tell noble Lords why: the helicopter was on other operational duties; in such circumstances the police just say, "On your way back from doing something else, could you take a snapshot of this place?" That is why the operation took only 10 minutes and was very modest. I am sure that the noble Earl could employ the service if he so chose.
	The case came to the police's attention because of the nature of the driving. The police thought that the driver's behaviour was a matter for attention. They stopped her; offered her a fixed penalty notice of £30, and no endorsement, because of her driving; she declined and took the case to court, where she was fined £60 with £100 costs. There is a lesson in that for us all.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I am not here to bash the police but perhaps I may ask a wider question: if the Crown Prosecution Service determines whether it is in the public interest to prosecute someone, what public interest was served in this case?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, a degree of levity has been used in relation to this case but it is serious. Unfortunately, 45,000 people either die or are injured on our roads. Two-thirds of the incidents do not involve other vehicles but are as a result of drivers' inattention. If you are eating, speaking on the telephone or doing something else in a way that affects the nature of your driving, you could cause a traffic incident in which you or somebody else will be injured. Unfortunately, an unacceptably high number of injuries and accidents happen on our roads every day. Ten people die every day.

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, does the Minister agree with me that any driving without full attention can be lethally dangerous? Is she aware that—a few years ago now, I accept—I dealt with an accident where the driver was eating an ice-cream, left the road and ran into a bus queue, causing fatal injuries in some cases? We should not trivialise these issues.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend; there have been some real tragedies. It is not just other victims who are affected. Quite often, the victim is the driver, whose family simply never gets over it.

Lord Inglewood: My Lords, the House has heard the noble Baroness's description of the events of this case. What added value was gained by bringing the helicopter into the picture?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the defendant pleaded not guilty, as she was entitled to, and wanted to have her day in court. Evidence had to be produced on where the incident took place, what the officer saw or did not see and the nature of her driving. That was the defendant's right. The Crown Prosecution Service, together with the police, has a duty to produce evidence that can be put before the court so that it can determine whether or not the person is guilty.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, did it ever occur to the powers that be to give the lady a caution?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the £30 fixed penalty notice could, by some, be described as a very effective caution; that the lady should concentrate on her driving and perhaps do a little less eating when turning left around a corner.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, should not the police have the credibility of the legal system in mind when they decide to prosecute?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, they absolutely should. But if an officer sees a person driving in a way that causes concern, he has a duty to bring that matter to the driver's attention and seek to make it right. If you eat an apple, try to turn left with one hand on the wheel and the other doing something else, it is not surprising if your driving becomes rather erratic in the process. As such, you put yourself and other people at risk. I am sure that the House would think that a very appropriate thing to try to stop.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, what is the position about smoking tobacco?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I believe that a number of people engage in it.

Institute for Fiscal Studies: Green Budget Report

Lord Roberts of Conwy: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they accept the conclusion of the Institute for Fiscal Studies' Green Budget 2005 report on the nation's finances.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government do not accept the Institute of Fiscal Studies' conclusion. The Government's latest fiscal projections were set out in the Pre-Budget Report in December 2004. They showed that the Government are meeting their tough fiscal rules with an average surplus on the current budget as a percentage of GDP over the current economic cycle and net debt projected to remain well below the 40 per cent ceiling of the sustainable investment rule. Updated projections will be published in the Budget.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that ample reply. But perhaps I may draw his attention to the report's conclusion, which says that,
	"there is no strong evidence that economic stability and Government policies have raised the sustainable long-term growth rate of the economy".
	In the light of that, how can the Government justify their increased spending plans over the next five years and assume, with any certainty, that their tax take will increase by some £26 billion a year, as projected in the Pre-Budget Report?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I assume that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, quoted from the IFS Green Budget. I have to remind him that five days before the IFS published its Green Budget, it described the public finances data as,
	"good news for the Government",
	with,
	"current receipts now on track to meet the Treasury's Pre-Budget Report forecast and . . . spending moving closer in line with the Pre-Budget Report".
	In view of the divergence of view within the Institute of Fiscal Studies, it is not clear that we should revise our own judgments.

Lord Sheldon: My Lords, since the golden rule is the yardstick by which taxation and spending are brought broadly into line over a certain period, does my noble friend accept the view of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, part of which he quoted, that the outcome could be even better than the Treasury expected? That is a rather surprising change of attitude by the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Will he confirm that he holds that view as well?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Institute of Fiscal Studies is simply recognising that the Treasury works on very cautious assumptions. For example, its estimate of growth for these purposes has consistently been 0.25 per cent below its own central view. That caution has been expressed for many years now since the current framework came into place.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, we are not surprised by the Minister's first response, which was to deny the view of the Institute of Fiscal Studies that there is a black hole in the Government's finances. In that case, the Minister will not find my question very difficult. Will he deny that the Government have no plans to raise national insurance contributions after the election?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I deny that there is a black hole and I refuse to make any forecasts other than those that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make in his Budget, which will be before any date of an election.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, as my noble friend does not want to get engaged in hypotheses about the future, would he perhaps care to look at the record over recent years and say whether the performance of the Government is a substantial improvement on what happened under the previous administration, particularly in relation to Black Wednesday, the details of which are now coming out and will be subject to full public view?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I could give 20 or 2,000 answers to that question. There are so many ways in which the economic performance of this Government is better than that of the previous government that I have an embarrassment of riches. If I were to take only one of the Opposition's favourite measures—what they call the tax burden—I could point out that the tax burden in 1979 to 1997 was 40.6 per cent of GDP. We have got nowhere near that.

Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the Treasury, within the past 24 hours, has shown a reluctance to release forecasts made at the time of Black Wednesday on the basis that it could set a precedent for information about current forecasts? Would it not be sensible for the Treasury to accept as a matter of policy that whenever forecasts are made available to Ministers, bearing in mind that these are forecasts not policy recommendations, they should be made public at the same time?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my understanding is that the Treasury's actions have been fully in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.

Lord Northbrook: My Lords, how can we trust the Government's borrowing figures when the prediction for the public sector current balance has been out by on average £10 billion per year over the past four years?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am not asking the noble Lord to trust any figures. I am simply pointing out that Treasury forecasts have been consistently better than the average of independent forecasters. Let us go on evidence, not on trust.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me what the IFS Green Budget report has to say about the rise in national income after tax under this Government compared with the previous government? How does the percentage of national income taken in tax under this Government compare with the average taken under the previous government?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not have all the answers to those questions, but I do know that since 1997 national income after tax under this Government has risen by 2.6 per cent in real terms. I understand that that is a faster rise than that achieved by the Conservative government. However, I shall have to write to my noble friend with the precise figure.

Sustainable Farming and Food

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What progress is being made on the implementation of The Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food.

Lord Whitty: My Lords, The Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food is a comprehensive, long-term plan for the future development of the industry. Much progress has already been made through, for example, the implementation of the 2003 CAP reform deal, the launch of new agri-environment schemes, successful pilots for the Whole Farm Approach, the launch of the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy and helping the food chain as a whole to improve competitiveness by supporting initiatives such as the Food Chain Centre and English Farming and Food Partnerships.

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will agree that the Curry report is only one of a number of strategies available to the Government. I refer also to the rural White Paper, the Haskins review and the rural delivery review. Which of those strategies takes priority and how do those concurrent policies mix with the Curry report itself? Would he please clarify the situation?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord seeks clarification. The food and farming strategy relates to the development of the food and farming industry while the rural strategy relates to the broader prosperity and well-being of rural communities. While there is an overlap in part, both strategies are being pursued with vigour, and I hope to make an announcement relating to the rural strategy very soon. We are conducting a coherent policy to address our rural responsibilities and those for the food chain.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, can the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, explain how the Government's determination to develop agriculture—I believe that he referred to the development of agriculture—coincides with the fact that the agriculture sector is becoming less productive and less rewarding?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the agriculture sector is not becoming less productive. Its efficiency and productivity have improved significantly. Although a slight downturn in income was recorded last year, that followed three years of substantial increases in income, albeit from a very low figure for 2000. Noble Lords will know that agriculture was deeply affected by both the exchange rate and subsequently by the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Agriculture has made a significant recovery, but it has a long way to go. Part of that recovery is improving its relationship with the rest of the food chain, which is exactly what the Curry review and the strategy are about.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, although some people may have benefited, the question of whether one has made money or seriously lost it depends entirely on what type of farming one is involved in?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, agriculture is a diverse private sector industry, albeit that there is a strong public ethos of support for it. There will be winners and losers. Substantial restructuring has taken place in agriculture, resulting in larger units and the departure from the sector of a significant number of smaller operators. Although that may have been distressing for some people in some areas, by and large the net effect of that restructuring has been to improve the efficiency and long-term competitiveness of the industry.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, what are the Government doing to remedy the decline in self-sufficiency in temperate foods in this country? Will he also give special mention to biofuels and oilseeds?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the development of biofuels, which I strongly support and hope to see measures brought forward in support of, does not count towards the food balance because, by definition, they are non-food. Biofuels have the potential to be useful and profitable adjuncts to the agriculture sector.
	Turning to self-sufficiency in food, we are still 74 per cent self-sufficient in products that can be produced in the UK. Virtually no other industry achieves anything like that level of self-sufficiency. Although the percentage has come down a little over recent years, it is still substantially better than it was in the 1930s or, indeed, during most of the previous century.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, is not the ultimate measurement of success or otherwise in the farming industry related to the value of farm properties and the price of land? Can my noble friend tell us whether the price of land is going up or coming down?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the price of land has risen significantly in most parts of the country, after a slight hiatus when there was uncertainty about the direction of the common agricultural policy. As no more land is being created, I suspect that its price will continue to rise and that land therefore represents a major asset to landowners and those who own long leases.

Lord Inglewood: My Lords, given the Minister's reply to the previous question, could he please explain to the House how the increase in the value of land, to which he alluded, helps tenant farmers?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, in many circumstances it does not help tenant farmers. The Government are seeking to address aspects of the tenancy situation. A recent report from the TRIG group suggests some improvements in tenancy arrangements which, it is hoped, would encourage a move towards longer-term and more stable tenancies for whole-farm tenants. Ultimately, however, there is a market for tenancies as there is for land. Land is scarce; the price of land is going up; and therefore the balance between the landowner and the tenant in most cases shifts in favour of the landowner. In those circumstances, it is the duty of the Government to protect the position of the tenant.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, the switch to the single farm payment system for supporting agriculture has led to the appearance of an increasing number of articles predicting that land at present being cropped will be taken out of agricultural production entirely. What contribution does the Minister think that development will make to sustainable agriculture?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the choice that will be available to farmers over how to use their land as a result of the single farm payment will mean that farmers can use their land to its maximum profitability, subject to various environmental considerations. Some farmers will not use all their available land for traditional agricultural processes, some will diversify, and some will look to alternative uses. I do not expect to see a significant reduction in the amount of land under agricultural cultivation as a result of the single farm payment. Indeed, in some areas, we may see more land being used. However, other developments are taking place, and some agricultural land may be used to provide, for example, affordable housing—thus addressing what everyone agrees is a major problem in rural areas.

Householders: Use of Reasonable Force

Lord Ackner: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether the guidelines issued by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers on the use of lethal force against intruders adequately address public concern.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, yes. On 12 January 2005, the Home Secretary announced that, in the Government's view, the current law is sound but that there was a need to provide clarification to householders regarding their rights. On 1 February, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers issued guidance. This guidance sets out in plain language what householders' rights are and the level of force that they can use if faced with an intruder in their home. As I and the Home Secretary made clear, the Government welcome the guidance.

Lord Ackner: My Lords, I have two questions to put to the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General. First, does he agree that the public want to know not only the degree of force which legitimately can be used against an intruder, but also what are the consequences of exceeding the use of reasonable force? Secondly, as the law stands the position is stark. If death results, the offence is murder and a sentence of imprisonment follows automatically. When will the Government implement the availability of the intermediate offence of manslaughter, as recommended by the Appellate Committee of this House in the case of the solder Clegg in Ireland in 1996, approving the recommendation of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, which was followed by the Law Commission and the Select Committee of this House on murder and life imprisonment, of which I was privileged to be a member?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, in answer to the noble and learned Lord's first question, yes, but I do not think there is any doubt that the public do know what the consequences are. That is what the debate has been about. As to his second question, I have sympathy with what he says. He will know that recently in the context of manslaughter by reason of provocation, the Law Commission was asked to look at the circumstances in which manslaughter may be the appropriate charge and drew attention to the issue to which the noble and learned Lord referred of what the correct charge should be where there is a case of self-defence but the violence is excessive. That needs to be looked at further.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, can the Attorney-General confirm that in the past 15 years there have been only 11 prosecutions of householders who used force against burglars, and that of that number only five were convicted? Has he seen the comments of the Director of Public Prosecutions that there have been cases where householders have shot dead or fatally stabbed burglars, or hit them over the head with a baseball bat or metal bar, and have not been prosecuted?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, in the second part of his question, my noble friend is right. The Director of Public Prosecutions has indicated that there have been cases where householders have killed the intruder and there has not been a prosecution. As to the first part of his question, again my noble friend is right. The Crown Prosecution Service carried out an informal—and therefore not necessarily exhaustive—survey and found that over the past 15 years there were only 11 cases where people were prosecuted for attacking intruders in houses, commercial premises or private land. In fact, only seven of those appear to have resulted from domestic household burglaries.

Lord Henley: My Lords, while accepting that there are distinctions between the criminal law and the civil law, does not the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General accept that there is a certain illogicality in that the test that is used in civil law to judge whether a burglar can sue a householder rests upon whether the householder has used grossly disproportionate force against the burglar, whereas the test in criminal law of whether a householder has acted properly rests upon reasonable force? Can the noble and learned Lord explain why there should be two distinct tests and whether he accepts that that is illogical?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I do not accept that it is illogical. The expression "reasonable in the circumstances" is used throughout the criminal law as the test for deciding culpability where violence is used against another person. It is entirely appropriate that it should remain so. But it is not right, the Government believe—and it has been accepted—that intruders should be able to claim damages under the civil law for injuries which they have brought upon themselves by their own illegal behaviour, except in the most exceptional circumstances.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General aware that in Oklahoma a householder is able to kill or maim an intruder whether or not there is a threat? It is called the "make my day" law. Do we want that in this country?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, the answer is "no" to both parts of the noble Lord's question.

Lord Merlyn-Rees: My Lords, what status does advice given by ACPO have in a court of law?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, my noble friend makes a very important point. Of course the law is determined by the courts, by the judges, and applied by the juries. But the guidance which has been produced setting out in plain language householders' rights and the level of force that they can use is, in the Government's view, extremely helpful in reassuring the public. It also indicates the way in which the police and the prosecution service will act. That is also important in giving reassurance that people can protect themselves, their families and their homes against intruders by using reasonable force. The Government very strongly support that fact.

Lord Lloyd of Berwick: My Lords, returning to the question asked by my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner, if the only available offence in cases where death has resulted from the use of excessive force is murder, will that not discourage juries from convicting in cases where there ought to have been a conviction?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I am sure that the noble and learned Lord is right. That is why I said that I have sympathy with the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. The issue needs to be further looked at. At the time of the debate about provocation it was indicated that the Home Office believed—and I agree entirely with this—that there is a need for a further review of this area.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that the Government have been looking at this issue since Clegg? Law Commissions can report and Select Committees, on which I serve, can report; the problem is that the Government are simply not prepared to listen.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, this is a difficult, sensitive and delicate area. One is dealing with cases of death caused by unlawful violence, whatever that may be. I have already indicated that I have some sympathy with the points made by noble and noble and learned Lords. I hope that will give the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, some comfort.

Lord Ackner: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General referred to provocation as a possible defence enabling manslaughter to be used. But provocation has nothing to do with the point that I raised. It is purely the use of excessive force without any question of provocation at all.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, that is absolutely right. I said that the Government looked at the issue of provocation which creates different problems. For instance, people find it offensive that someone is acquitted of murder and convicted only of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation when that appears to mean that the victim brought the death upon herself—and it often is "herself"—when what is actually at issue, for example, is sexual jealousy or concern that a wife is leaving. It was in that context that the question of the proper charge for excessive violence in self-defence arose. I was not for a moment equating the two issues. It is simply that they both arise out of the present law of manslaughter and murder.

Electoral Registration (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL]

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Amos, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about the registration of electors in Northern Ireland in cases where required information is not provided. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
	On Question, Bill read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Children (Contact) and Adoption

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the Commons message of yesterday be now considered, and that a committee of six Lords be appointed to join with the committee appointed by the Commons to consider and report on the draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill presented to both Houses on 2nd February 2005 (Cm 6462);
	That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following be named of the committee:
	E. Dundee B. Gould of Potternewton B. Hooper B. Howarth of Breckland B. Massey of Darwen B. Nicholson of Winterbourne;
	That the committee have power to agree with the Commons in the appointment of a chairman;
	That the committee have leave to report from time to time;
	That the committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
	That the committee have power to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;
	That the quorum of the committee shall be two;
	That the reports of the committee from time to time shall be printed, notwithstanding any adjournment of the House;
	And that the committee do report on the draft Bill by 26th May 2005.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
	On Question, Motion agreed to; and a message was ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Parliament: Public Engagement

Lord Norton of Louth: rose to call attention to the case for increasing public engagement with Parliament; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, this is not the first time I have raised the issue of increasing public engagement with Parliament and I make no apology for returning to it. For too long, the relationship between the public and Parliament has been neglected in favour of highlighting the relationship of Parliament to the executive. It has been a skewed focus. Parliament's role, crucially, is as the link between the people and the executive. Government is chosen through elections to Parliament and, as Enoch Powell once observed, it is through Parliament that people speak to government and government speak to the people. Parliament thus occupies a pivotal position. It alone has the legitimacy to do so.
	Is there evidence that the public wishes to engage more with Parliament? We often assume that people are losing interest in politics. There is certainly evidence that people are losing interest in political parties and partisan debate and that they distrust politicians. However, survey data show that people, not least young people, are interested in political issues and that there are more people now than there were 20 years ago who are willing to take action in the event of Parliament considering an unjust or harmful law.
	We know that people, individually as constituents and drawn together in interest groups, do make contact with Members of both Houses. Constituents are more likely to write to their MPs than was previously the case. Interest groups now lobby Members of both Houses on an unprecedented scale. A survey of interest groups carried out in the 1980s found that three-quarters had regular or frequent contact with one or more MPs. A consequence is the sheer volume of mail arriving in the Palace of Westminster. In 2003, that amounted to no fewer than 12.5 million items: 80 per cent went to MPs, the remainder to Members of this House. The figure excludes the ever-growing number of e-mails sent to Members of both Houses.
	I welcome the fact that within Parliament there is an awareness of the need to engage more effectively with the public. Facilities and material for those visiting the Palace of Westminster have been significantly expanded. Proceedings are broadcast on the Parliament Channel. Despite a marked decline in parliamentary reporting by the national press, more people are now able to see Parliament in action than was ever the case before the 1980s. The Parliament website hosts 9,000 pages and more than a quarter of a million people access the site every month. Committee proceedings are webcast. Both Houses now have dedicated information officers. Your Lordships' House has an excellent Information Office under Mary Morgan, disseminating material on the work and proceedings of this House. There is a group on information for the public, a Commons' body that includes Mary Morgan, to help co-ordination across Parliament.
	Changes in structures and procedures have also facilitated engagement. The greater use of evidence-taking Select Committees in both Houses has provided an important and structured means for interested bodies to submit evidence. The use of committees for pre-legislative scrutiny has considerably enhanced engagement with those outside Parliament. Some committees have utilised online consultations, in some cases attracting submissions from people who would not otherwise have participated in the parliamentary process.
	The result is greater contact between Parliament and the public than ever before and I think it is important to make that point. Is that then not sufficient? It certainly is not. We have failed to keep pace with popular demands and expectations. We have not yet got the fit right between people's interest in particular issues and the means we employ to engage with them.
	In the time available I wish to focus on what needs to be done. This can be considered under two headings: first, process; and, secondly, awareness. If we are to achieve greater engagement with citizens, then the way in which we deal with legislation, and consider issues of public policy, has to be fit for purpose. The way we organise the process remains far from adequate. There is no structured means by which citizens can have an input when Bills—or, rather, most Bills—are being considered by Parliament. Only a minority of Bills are considered by evidence-taking committees. Standing Committees in another place are not empowered to take evidence. The use of Special Standing Committees in another place which can take evidence is extraordinarily rare. Only a minority of Bills are subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by Select Committees. For an individual or group with a particular interest in a Bill, the only recourse is to write to one or more Members. They need to have a good knowledge of MPs and Peers, as well as the parliamentary process, to know who to contact and when to contact them.
	If members of the public are especially concerned about an issue of public policy, and if they think that something should be done, they may decide to petition Parliament. Signing a petition is the most popular form of collective political activity. The MORI poll for the Hansard Society and Electoral Commission Audit of Political Engagement published last year, found that 39 per cent of those questioned had signed a petition. That is three time as many as had presented their views to a local councillor or MP. Many people may devote a lot of time to organising a petition and thousands may sign it.
	What happens when it comes to Parliament? As the Modernisation Committee of another place laconically noted last year in its report Connecting Parliament with the Public:
	"Very little is currently done with petitions to the House of Commons".
	For all intents and purposes, they enter a parliamentary black hole. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is now a tendency for people to petition Downing Street rather than Parliament.
	Parliament needs therefore to reform its structures so that people outside can more directly engage with both Houses. However, changing the way we operate is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Having appropriate structures in place is no use if people are unaware of them and what their purpose is. We need to enhance popular awareness of what we do and the means available for people to have an input into our deliberations.
	The most extensive means of educating people about Parliament is through the provision of citizenship in the national curriculum. This is a welcome development, but it has not yet met the expectations of those responsible for it. This is, in part, because of the way the provision of citizenship education is structured—a point taken up by the Modernisation Committee—and in part because of inadequate resources to deliver the curriculum. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who is president of the Citizenship Foundation, is unable to participate in the debate because he is in Grand Committee. He wished to stress that too little resource was put behind the introduction of citizenship education in schools. Those schools that have made a go of it have been reaping a rich harvest, especially in terms of engaging those who are usually difficult to motivate but, regrettably, they represent only about one in three of secondary schools.
	Limited resources also constrain the Information Offices of both Houses from reaching a much wider audience. The Scottish Parliament has four or five times the number of staff that we have in this House in order to disseminate information. The Information Office in this House publishes an excellent booklet entitled The Work of the House of Lords. The print run is 40,000. Put that figure alongside that of the 430,000 people who visit the palace each year. The booklet would be an excellent resource for anyone teaching citizenship, but there are not the resources to mail copies to schools.
	When Barry Winetrobe of Glasgow University and a former member of the House of Commons' Library gave evidence to the Constitution Committee last year, he drew attention to,
	"the more integrated and comprehensive experience of the Scottish Parliament, where notions of public engagement are embodied in all its operations".
	Emulating the Scottish Parliament, he noted, would entail a twin-track strategy of informing the public about the legislative process and engaging the public in the legislative process. As I hope will have been apparent from what I have said, that is precisely what I envisage.
	How can this twin-track strategy be achieved? Let me deal, first, with process. The Constitution Committee, which I had the privilege to chair, published its report on Parliament and the Legislative Process in October. It recommended that pre-legislative scrutiny should be the norm, rather than the exception, and that every Bill should be considered at some stage during its passage by an evidence-taking committee. It also encouraged committees, wherever possible, to take evidence outside Westminster and to consider the greater use of e-consultation and the commissioning of opinion polls. These are significant proposals and it will help if the Minister can tell us when the Government will be replying to that report.
	The report also drew attention to the use of petitions committees in other parliaments, including the Scottish Parliament. The Modernisation Committee in the other place recommended that consideration be given to petitions automatically standing referred to the appropriate Select Committee. There is a case for a dedicated petitions committee, able to act as a channel of onward transmission, but also with a capacity to chase up departments to ensure that each petition receives a considered response from government.
	In terms of enhancing awareness, the website—as the Modernisation Committee recognised—needs to be far more user-friendly. The committee advocated a radical upgrading. I favour a complete redesign with far more emphasis on issues, rather than on structures and processes. As the Modernisation Committee noted, a major upgrade entails a significant investment in systems and staff.
	That is also the case with expanding the information disseminated by both Houses. Parliament needs to invest significantly in dissemination. We need to harness our resources to providing visitors to the Palace with material about Parliament as a working institution, not simply as a historic building. We need to publish material—clear, accessible material—for schools and colleges throughout the country. Why not ensure that every student has a copy of the pamphlet, Your Parliament? We need to support citizenship education on a properly resourced basis. The failure to resource properly the provision of information to the public is a false economy.
	My list is illustrative rather than exhaustive, but it is sufficient to identify what we should be doing. The relationship of Parliament to the public is fundamental to the health of our political system. Citizens know how to contact their local MP. They have less awareness of the institution of Parliament and of how it goes about its business. We know that, when they come into contact with the institution, their reaction is a positive one. We need to ensure that they have greater engagement. We benefit from their input: the political system is the better for it. We certainly cannot afford to be insular. We need to act, and the sooner the better. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for opening the debate and for his many fine suggestions. I shall devote my seven slender minutes to how we physically receive the visiting public into the Lords, how accurately your Lordships' House is reported and how we might improve both.
	When noble Lords walked into the House today, they will have noticed that nothing outside indicates the House of Lords, let alone welcomes the visitor. The only signs, apart from "In", "Out" and "No Entry", are one to Black Rod's Garden entrance—an Eden that I believe no longer exists—and a reference to the Sovereign's Entrance—a whole sign for a visitor who comes but once a year. However, we have a Peers' Entrance. It is through that unsigned portal that the visiting public is invited to come into their own Parliament but, other than the excellent welcome afforded by our door staff, there is no visible sign of welcome, and no orientation manifests itself. It gets worse.
	Skip the next few steps and fast forward to our putative Peregrine Pickle, availing himself of the opportunity to observe one of your Lordships' excellent Select Committees at work. We have all sat on such committees and have stirred when some timid stranger from the real world outside steps hesitatingly into, say, Committee Room 4, which unhelpfully tells Peregrine Pickle that Sub-Committee G—no description—is sitting there. Once inside, no information is provided about the remit of the committee, its current subject of inquiry, its personnel or the names and status of the witnesses. A few minutes later, your Lordships hear the scrape of a chair and a shuffle as our visitor rises to leave, an older but no wiser man, with regard to your Lordships' House and how it works. He will return to the real world outside, disabused of only one of the myths that grip our television nation: namely, the myth that your Lordships habitually sport ermine at work as their regular home kit.
	Noble Lords will get the picture. In the Lords, we assert and assume. We seldom welcome or explain. That is despite some notable developments in recent years. Our Select Committee reports are now more attractive and readable. They are no longer redolent of post-war paper austerity matched with printed type suitable for a pre-Chaucerian palimpsest.
	In our daily work, we suffer from the incubus of this fine but faulty building, which was designed for another age. Secondly, we suffer from a lack of funds and resources to do and explain our work, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. Indeed, in our annual report, we vaingloriously boast that the British public get us on the cheap. In contrast, the European Parliament has a wonderful, dedicated visitors' centre and staff who do an unparalleled job in explaining their parliament to our people.
	We should leave this Palace of Westminster to the Commons and to the Law Lords, for whom we are regularly and confusingly mistaken. We should build a new parliament building as successful architecturally as the Scottish Parliament, which receives coachloads of visitors. We need a parliament building that opens its doors and welcomes the public, who may then see us for themselves. We need a modern, vibrant second Chamber, confident in its job of legislative scrutiny, informed debate and government oversight.
	I now turn to how we are reported. Unfortunately, we often collude with the strange and quirky image that the public have of us. That is reflected in "Today in Parliament" on Radio 4 where, as often as not, one of the odder—and usually trivial—exchanges in this House provides the light dessert to the meatier menu of the Commons. Who can blame the public for thinking that the Lords remains the comic creation detailed a century ago by Gilbert and Sullivan?
	This is all the more regrettable given the experience, expertise and knowledge found in the Lords on important issues, such as the European Union. However, in large part we fail to activate that pool of expertise to the benefit of the country and the public. What better time is there than now, in advance of the proposed referendum on the European Union and its constitution, to mobilise the living library of considered thought contained in our countless EU reports and give it a public face and voice? Why not copy the public information service of the Folketing, the Danish Parliament, which provides documentation and informed information on our European Union affairs to its own citizens. That service has a dedicated staff and an up-to-date website. Against the tide of Euro-myth and misinformation, we have common cause in shedding light on issues that really touch the lives of Mr and Mrs Peregrine Pickle as they perambulate outside their own Parliament.
	Finally, I draw the attention of my noble friend the Minister to the European Union Select Committee's meeting in Brussels with the Commissioner responsible for parliamentary liaison, Margot Wallström, who is the public face of Europe. Not only did she expatiate to us on the Commission's own new "call direct phone line", which is styled to rebut the more absurd examples of myth- and mischief-making currently engulfing the public image of the European Union, but, prompted by my question on Carl Bildt's suggestion of townhouse meetings for the public, she also promised that, if invited by the incoming British presidency, the 25-strong European Commission would fan out throughout the United Kingdom to hold "meet the public" meetings at the time of their forthcoming presidency briefing here in London. Will my noble friend explore that exciting possibility? Who knows, perhaps we too should join in that exercise in meeting the public whom we strive to serve beyond the M25?

Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for making this debate possible and for his challenging opening speech. I declare an interest as chairman of the Hansard Society, whose purpose is better to connect Parliament and people. I shall be referring to some work the society does in a moment.
	Before I do, there is a problem—and there is no point trying to skate over this—which, if not of disconnection, is at least of a faulty connection between Parliament and people. There is considerable evidence of misunderstanding both who we are and what we do. For instance, in the qualitative phase of the audit of political engagement to which the noble Lord, Lord Norton, referred—which was commissioned by the Hansard Society and the Electoral Commission—the pollsters asked participants, as they do nowadays, to compare Parliament with an animal. Which creatures did they choose: the noble lion, or the wise owl? No: they chose snakes, weasels, foxes, wolves and vultures. Yet in the same audit, over two-thirds of those responding wanted a say in how the country is run—although, interestingly, only one-third of them thought they had that.
	So, before talking about some of the excellent work that is being done, by the staff of both Houses and by such bodies as the Hansard Society and the Citizenship Foundation, to which Lord Norton referred, it might be worth while exploring some causes of this apparent alienation. First, we must accept that in our times the age of deference has gone for ever. We live in a "show me" world, not a "tell me" world. There is no longer any magic cloak of mystery available in which parliamentarians can wrap themselves. Like the once-mighty Wizard of Oz, we are now exposed to full view. Or are we? For most people see us through the media, and it is conspicuous how relatively empty the press benches are during this debate.
	When we think about the media, another insight from attitude research may be relevant. On the whole, people have a pretty good opinion of their Member of Parliament. They rate their local MP well. Yet, at the same time they mistrust politicians and Parliament en masse. We can see the same effect in other spheres of public life. People whose personal and family experience of healthcare has been good, for instance, nevertheless feel that the NHS is on its last legs. It is as if the public space is so full of cynicism that people hardly trust their own experience in making judgments about what is happening in public affairs.
	In the case of Parliament I would hazard a guess, if I dare do so in a pre-election period, than an excess of adversarial partisanship has something to do with this cynicism. People see very little, for instance, of our careful, consensual, cross-party work in committees, but they see a lot of synthetic outrage and ritualistic sparring. Even more problematically—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Norton, implied—they see Parliament as part of an often unpopular government, rather than as a healthy and corrective counter-balance to executive power. So what of the media? Is it a true mirror, where any parliamentary rage that exists is simply that of Caliban seeing himself in the glass? Or is it a distorting prism?
	It is precisely to explore these issues of the symbiotic relationship between Parliament and the media that the Hansard Society last year established a high-level commission on Parliament in the Public Eye, ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I certainly look forward to his commission's insights and recommendations when it publishes—which will, I think, be soon after the election—and to hearing from the noble Lord later in the debate. I know his commission has already identified one bridge to better understanding, and here again I follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton. That is to make a better connection between issues in which people are intensely interested—whether it be pensions, poverty, the environment or the Iraq war—and our parliamentary process and programme. To the layman, those too often seem impenetrable and technical, illuminated only by the occasional pyrotechnics of a debating ding-dong.
	That is one reason I particularly welcome the emphasis put on pre-legislative scrutiny in Parliament and the Legislative Process—the last report, published in October 2004, by the Constitution Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Norton. I understand that the Government have undertaken to respond within six months—and those six months run out on 25 April, when the Government may be otherwise occupied. Can we please see an early response to that very important report? When the Minister responds, it would be helpful to know when that might be.
	Pre-legislative scrutiny is a wonderful opportunity to follow EM Forster's maxim: "only connect". The Hansard Society tries to help in this through its website tellparliament.net, which creates facilitated forums for committees and for all-party groups to consult the public. Currently, for instance, 330 people are engaged in a diabetes dialogue. Interestingly, 78 per cent of them have never been in contact with a Member of Parliament before—yet they are now actively involved in consulting, both as lay and expert members of the public on that issue.
	So we are making some progress. Thankfully, there has been widespread recognition in Parliament that we have much still to do. I, too, pay tribute to the work of the Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee, and to the House authorities here, including Mary Morgan, who do a great deal with limited resources. The House authorities made a bold decision last summer in allowing the Hansard Society to hold our "House to Home" exhibition, which some of your Lordships came to, in Westminster Hall. It was a great success: we had over 60,000 people attending the exhibition. The great majority of them became involved in dialogue and constructive feedback. Bodies such as ours are also working in schools, trying to bridge the gap I have spoken about.
	If there is one theme which links all these activities—whether by the House or by civic, public interest bodies—and which I believe should affect our deliberations today, it is that if this Parliament is to avoid becoming a heritage backwater, we must demonstrate first that we are not an appendage of the Government, but a living legislature. Secondly, we must demonstrate that our doors are open—literally, figuratively and electronically—to our fellow citizens. If we can do that, then the mother of Parliaments will be able to enjoy a respected and useful third age.

Baroness Greenfield: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for introducing this timely debate. We live in an era when public engagement is critical for the big, often unprecedented issues that face us as a fast-moving, 21st-century society. Never before has engagement been so needed on the new types of problems and opportunities—many of them influenced by science and technology—that face us today. Indeed, it is a search for the best strategy for public empowerment in a rapidly changing society in which scientists also need to engage.
	It seems to me, as a scientist, that there are some clear analogies between the problems faced by scientists for public engagement and those faced by Parliament. In both cases, Parliament and science affect our daily life. Yet, there is still a groundswell of apathy, in both cases, that the affairs discussed—either among scientists or, indeed, in Parliament—are beyond the expertise and knowledge of many and, indeed, the daily cares of most. How convenient, then, just to leave it to others—the professionals, the experts—while one gets on with one's daily life.
	Surely, such an attitude is not just one of benign negligence but has far more negative overtones. Scientists and parliamentarians are distrusted. In both cases they could be perceived—and, in a manner fuelled avidly by a sensationalist press—as self-serving. To that end, they might well be perceived in both cases as manipulating information or being economical with the truth, in accordance with their own agenda. A scientist, as a parliamentarian, could be perceived by the general public as, at best, impacting only very indirectly on their daily life.
	In a recent survey, two-thirds of those polled apparently thought that scientists wanted to make life better for the average person, but a similar proportion also thought that a scientist should listen more to what people thought. It is at fora such as those at the Royal Institution and, commendably, other science centres throughout the country, where we try to address that problem.
	When it comes to public engagement with Parliament, I gather that there are some excellent strategies afoot to help remedy a comparable situation. Apparently, citizenship classes are being instigated in schools, websites for parliamentarians are increasingly interactive, and mock elections are being held with young people to give them a feel for democracy and what it can achieve. However, parliamentarians and scientists are surely in need of a more general culture change. That phrase is widely used yet rarely defined, because it amounts to nothing less than the collective mindset of our whole society: the amalgam of our ideas, thoughts, hopes, beliefs and, as such, it is hard to change. After all, a belief is often immutable in the face of logic or evidence to the contrary.
	A belief, therefore, that science and Parliament are boring, that scientists and politicians are devious and dysfunctionally remote from everyday life, is clearly not so easy to undermine simply by telling people the contrary. We need to show the alternatives and stimulate, so that certain beliefs are replaced by others. Beliefs and ideas are hardly ever changed by merely increasing laws, by further regulations or audits. In fact, such simple manoeuvres would attempt to control through change and would surely bring about the opposite of the desired effect. Laws and audits may well deter a public, especially those employed in public sector careers such as school and university teaching, where they are already plagued by a demoralising over-regulation. I suggest that culture change is most effected by people caring about what is happening; by emphasising content rather than process; by convincing people that what happens in both institutions, be it science or Parliament, is relevant to their daily life; and, above all, that they are empowered when they take an active interest.
	Again, a good comparison between science and Parliament is that interest often mounts when people disagree. There is a perception, perhaps, for both science and Parliament, that we are often homogenous in the way in which we go about our business. None the less, Parliament, more so than science, is of course in the business of celebrating the diversity of ideologies. Some might argue that a clash of ideologies is less marked in Parliament than it used to be. Perhaps Parliament could be seen as going the way of science, perceived as a grey area of dogma, where the only diversity eventually lies not in polarisation but in personality—in image rather than idea. As such, the public, through the media, often play the man rather than the ball, placing emphasis on the personalities and caprices of individuals rather than the range of concepts that they represent.
	It is hard to legislate an involvement and an interest in an institution without first catering for a nascent interest in the subject matter itself. It is exactly the same problem with science: one cannot ask the general public to be involved with science as a generic and empty concept, as a process, as a word. Instead, one has to show, through examples, how relevant it is. Indeed, the affairs discussed in Parliament will increasingly have a strong scientific or technological flavour. There is a further merit in drawing comparisons between the two, to show how a culture change in both cases could be brought about. Debates in Parliament, rather as scientific experiments, are hard to change in their methodology. Rather, the way in which they are presented and what is expressed should be where we focus and, in particular, on how we work with the media.
	Perhaps one advantage of science over Parliament is that we are able to use visual images, which apparently increase the impact of a presentation by 400 per cent. On the other hand, the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate, increasingly available as it is on different types of screen, as opposed to the pages of highly technical peer-review journals, must surely redress that balance.
	I spent a substantial part of last year in Australia, reporting as a "thinker in residence" to the Premier of South Australia. One of the central issues on which we were working was how science and, indeed, scholarship in general, could be mainstreamed with the activities inter alia of politicians. One project that I encountered in Australia and which I commend to your Lordships, was a "Science in Parliament" initiative promoted by the state of Queensland. Scientists and politicians met together in large numbers, and that, of course, had traction in the press. Similar models, where science as well as other sectors could be seen to be engaging with parliamentarians, discussing ideas that were relevant to the public, and ways whereby the public could appreciate a diversity of view, would make for good and improved media copy, and hence encourage more public engagement.
	Culture change is not easy, nor can it be the responsibility of one sector or profession. It is both an effect and a cause of other transformations occurring in our society, but it is something to which we need to be sensitive. I suggest that it is only by working closely with the media and concentrating on the issues that concern people that we will help them avoid sleepwalking into a fast-paced technological change. Instead, parliamentarians and scientists alike should aim to empower a greater intimacy with a system that should increasingly, in turn, be preoccupied with the implications of that technological change.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, on inspiring this important debate, and I welcome many of his suggestions about process. This debate is of the utmost importance because it is inextricably linked to the need to nurture our democracy. I am a passionate democrat, and I deeply regret the current lack of interest and engagement in the governance of our country.
	Too many of us have become passive democrats. Too many people cannot be bothered to go out and vote in elections. It is not that they do not like voting. When it comes to "Big Brother" and the plethora of other programmes that require people to vote participants in or out, millions of fingers press the red buttons. But people do not think that voting in elections really matters and they do not understand how relevant it is to their daily lives. This is a persistent source of frustration for me, and it turns into something much deeper when I read reports of the elections in Iraq, where people voted in polling stations that had been bombed earlier in the day, and where a woman of 60 is reported as saying, "Today is the first time that I feel like a complete human being". These people are thirsting for democracy, to engage in their new system of governance and to help shape their future.
	Perhaps those of us who have not had to struggle for our democratic rights take them too easily for granted. Perhaps the struggle also provides a form of education so that people know why they need to engage and understand that democracy is a means of empowerment and an important aspect of social and political emancipation.
	The tendency towards single-issue campaigns that other noble Lords have mentioned rather than engagement in the democratic process is, of course, not confined to the UK. It is the same in France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the USA and many other countries. For me, the attractions of compulsory voting are great. Does it matter if people do not engage in the political process and do not bother to vote? Yes, it does. I understand that many young people have been turned off traditional politics and prefer to engage in campaigns that are of specific concern to them. I celebrate their commitment, but I regret that too often they are unwilling to use our system of governance to best effect. They might lobby us, but they do not vote. A healthy democracy needs the oxygen of participation. Once the participation falls below a certain level, its legitimacy is called into question and then we enter very dangerous and uncharted waters.
	In my view, people have a democratic duty to vote and to engage, but they can exercise that responsibility only if they understand the system in which we live. Therein lies one of the problems. Many people have only a limited knowledge of what Parliament is and does and therefore do not engage with Parliament. Perhaps, more importantly, Parliament does not adequately engage with them. We do not reach out to people as we should. Too often we forget that Parliament belongs to the people. There are many ways of dealing with the challenge of providing better information and access for the public. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, mentioned many ways in which the House of Commons and House of Lords are making significant changes. But there is much more to be done. Perhaps some of us should consider blogging.
	We have to establish a better dialogue between Parliament and the citizens of this country. Education is, in my view, the key. If we can instil into children and young people the importance of democracy and understanding of local councils, Parliament, government and the European Parliament, they will be empowered to use the systems and structures to their advantage and the advantage of the society in which they live. I warmly welcome the Government's initiative to introduce citizenship into the national curriculum. I know that there has been some criticism about the teaching of citizenship; clearly, poor-quality teaching must be improved. However, this should not detract from the importance of the subject and the need for adequate resources.
	Those of us who have the privilege to be parliamentarians have a special responsibility to engage with schools, from primary level upwards, to explain what we do and why. Interacting with children and young people is a pleasure and a great way to break down barriers. With respect to colleagues who are older, wiser and much wealthier than I am, some children I have met simply cannot believe that a middle-aged woman wearing jeans who lives down the road can be a member of your Lordships' House.
	The provision of information about what we do, the laws that we pass and the committees on which we sit is for me an integral part of a transparent democracy. It is an expensive part of democracy and we are too reluctant to invest properly in the dissemination of information and the setting up of interactive dialogue.
	The media also have to take some responsibility for nurturing democracy and increasing public engagement with Parliament. Freedom of the press is possible only in a democracy. The 24-hour media in constant search for breaking news stories no longer take enough interest in the deliberations of Parliament. Yes, Parliament junkies like me can obtain our daily fix with "Today in Parliament", but most news programmes and newspapers do not have adequate parliamentary coverage. The huge fall in the number of Lobby correspondents is a clear testament to that.
	The daily grilling of politicians does not fill the gap. Indeed, too often the cynicism of interviewers and their clear disregard for the integrity of politicians reinforces the public's jaundiced view of politicians. Greatest responsibility must lie with politicians themselves. It is up to us to restore confidence in politics and in our democratic system. One of the ways to do that is by ensuring that we and our Parliament engage with the public. We have a duty to inform and explain, to interact and to listen. Politicians must not raise unrealistic expectations that we cannot deliver. We must not lose touch and become disconnected. We must make an effort to keep plugged into reality and to engage.
	As we near a general election, political parties have a responsibility not to tarnish further the political system. Engaging in negative politics, cultivating cynicism and fostering apathy demeans us all. The public's reaction is, "A plague on everyone's houses," and we all lose out.
	This is not a counsel of despair. It is a plea to government, Parliament and all colleagues on these Benches that we should increase our engagement with the public in the interests of transparency and as a means of reinvigorating our democratic system. The challenge is great and costly, but it is one that we must meet. To use a phrase borrowed from one of my heroes, Willy Brandt, let us "dare more democracy" and dare more engagement between Parliament and the public.

Lord Dean of Harptree: My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth for introducing this important debate. How refreshing it is so far to have a broad measure of agreement from all parts of your Lordships' House. There is nothing more important for all of us as parliamentarians than the relationship between Parliament and people.
	Our forefathers fought for over a century in Parliament and outside to obtain the universal franchise. Why is it then that we have poor turnouts at elections; that people turn away from the polls; and that they seem to feel that Parliament does not effectively represent their interests? What can we in Parliament do about it?
	I go back to Burke's classic definition in the 18th century; namely, it is the job of Parliament—I think that this applies to both Houses—to represent the interests of the nation. Representation does not necessarily mean election. I had the privilege to be elected to another place in 1964. In those days, there were MPs in all parts of the House who had knowledge and experience of the world and work outside politics. Unfortunately, in all parts of the House, most of those have disappeared.
	We now have an increasing number of professional politicians. I am not decrying professional politicians, but we do not want too many if we are to have balanced and effective representation in Parliament. That is one of the reasons why people feel that the representation of their interests in Parliament is not as great as it used to be.
	I suggest that your Lordships' House is today more representative of the British public than another place. We have a wealth of experience and knowledge. There are Peers with knowledge and experience of virtually every subject under the sun. Why are your Lordships' mailbags growing all the time? Because people feel that their problems are understood and will be effectively expressed in your Lordships' House. Why is it that governments accept amendments put forward in your Lordships' House? Surely it is because they recognise on occasions that the wisdom and experience in your Lordships' House is superior to the wisdom coming out of Whitehall. That is one of the reasons why this House is respected outside; long may that continue.
	Reform has been in the air off and on since 1911. I am fairly suspicious of most of the proposals put forward for reform of your Lordships' House. I know that noble Lords, particularly those opposite, will say, "There is a crusty old Tory reactionary" and all that.

A noble Lord: Hear, hear!

Lord Dean of Harptree: I say that because under most of the proposals for reform the House would be less representative of the people of this country and diversity would be reduced. I am particularly against an elected element in your Lordships' House. My noble friend on the Front Bench is probably looking disapprovingly at me, but in my view the elected element would make the House less representative of the interests of this country and too much like a pale shadow of another place, particularly if nomination for candidates was dominated by the party machine, which would almost certainly be the case.
	I can think of only one reform that might meet with consensus in your Lordships' House: to offer life peerages to our present colleagues who are here on a hereditary basis. The Government can then say that they have got rid of the hereditary Peers, which is one of their pledges; the rest of us can say that we preserve continuity and a House that works well.
	As has been said from all parts of the House already, Parliament is at its strongest and best when people feel that their interests are understood and expressed and that Parliament enters into their hopes and fears and does something about them. Parliament will then have more authority and be an effective watchdog on government and will prevent further encroachment on the powers of Parliament by the government of the day.

Lord Parekh: My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for introducing this debate with his usual erudition and wisdom. We need to be clear why it is important that we should increase public engagement with Parliament. It is not a question of political cosmetics, nor is it a question of how best we can sell ourselves to the people, but it goes to the very heart of the kind of political system that we have.
	Britain has always prided itself in being unique in having a parliamentary form of government and a parliamentary democracy. It is a form of government in which the sovereignty is supposed to lie with the people, but it is exercised not by them directly but indirectly through Parliament. Therefore, it is a complex form of government, and we must constantly remember that it must strike the right kind of balance between Parliament on the one hand and democracy or the public on the other. If Parliament were to become remote or overbearing, the democratic element would suffer and people would feel alienated from it. On the other hand, if the Parliament became populist and tended to conform much too easily to popular demands, there is a danger that people would lose respect for the institution and the parliamentary aspect would suffer. I say that to set the scene for a couple of important points that I want to make.
	Parliamentary democracy depends for its success on the constant flow of ideas and influences between Parliament on the one hand and the public on the other. I have a feeling that perhaps, in earlier debates, there has been a concentration on how we can reach out to the people and make ourselves better known and recognised. We also need to look at the other side of the equation; namely, how people can reach out to us and influence the quality and content of debate in this House. It is in that context that I want to raise four or five important issues.
	First, it is absolutely vital that the public should be able to make an input into the parliamentary proceedings. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, rightly said, public petitions on which hundreds of people expend a lot of effort should be taken far more seriously than we seem to. One way in which to do that would be to refer them automatically to the relevant Select Committees, which would decide whether to conduct an inquiry into the issues that the public petitions have raised or take them into account in the context of some other ongoing inquiry.
	In that context, I am reminded of a very important debate that took place in this country in the early decades of the 20th century, when the great Liberals and members of the Independent Labour Party, as it was in those days, asked themselves how people could be directly involved in the conduct of parliamentary debate. There was a fascinating suggestion, which might be worth revisiting, that 5 per cent or 10 per cent of the legislation in any given year could be set aside for public input. In other words, people who know where the shoe pinches and have daily experience of how the political system works have some fascinating ideas about what laws and policy they would like to see adopted. Why not think in terms of asking people to suggest what kind of laws and policy they would like to see? The whole nation might be engaged in a very important debate about what Parliament might eventually do with those ideas.
	The second point that I want to raise has to do with the fact that some of our laws and policies can benefit greatly from wider citizen input. We do that to some extent, but we could do it far more by institutionalising and widening popular consultation. Select Committees or Joint Committees considering draft legislation could take evidence outside Westminster, or we might organise well publicised citizens' forums where public debate could take place and the public could make an input into the system. We might commission public opinion polls or invite extensive online consultation.
	Thirdly, your Lordships' House is rightly well known, not only in this country but throughout the world, for the quality of its debates. These debates, whether on euthanasia, humanitarian intervention, university funding or the war on Iraq, have been absolutely first rate and deserve to be better known. They could be published in attractive covers by Her Majesty's Stationary Office and sold at a subsidised rate or given away free to schools and universities. They could then form the basis of debates in schools in the same way as Supreme Court decisions form the basis of debates in schools in the United States. They would educate public opinion and raise public awareness as to what your Lordships' House actually does. There is no reason why one could not go a step further and have a parliamentary education unit to summarise debates and issues in short two or three-page summaries for the benefit of the media.
	Fourthly, in this country, compared to some other countries, there is no regular contact between academics and parliamentarians. There is a lot of expertise in our universities which could be profitably utilised for the benefit of our debates and legislation. It would therefore be greatly beneficial if academics and other experts who are not institutionally tied could be involved in organising seminars and discussions for the benefit of MPs and Peers. I know, for example, that the University of Westminster, with which I am associated, is planning a Westminster forum on politics and international relations, precisely with that sort of thing in mind. I very much hope that our parliamentary education unit might be able to co-operate with it.
	Finally, in much of the discussion, our ethnic minorities tend to get ignored. I was a little disappointed that there was no reference to how they might make an input into our debate. They are particularly handicapped because they have few regular columnists who express their views on important issues. They are grossly underrepresented in the other place, though happily well represented in this one. We need to find some imaginative ways in which to take Parliament to them as well as bringing them to the Parliament. They have a vital input to make, not just in race-related issues but on lots of other issues, such as the war on Iraq and university funding, on all of which they have important sensibilities to communicate. At present the CRE is more or less their only spokesman, and that has its obvious limitations.
	I would suggest that there might be two ways in which to engage those people, although there are countless others which your Lordships may think of. One would be to have a Select Committee on Race, for a short period at least. Secondly, we might have a clearly targeted consultative mechanism directed at ethnic minorities. Those two ideas may be worth considering, and I am sure that there are many other such ideas.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Norton for starting the debate. I agreed with everything he said, I believe, including the suggestion that there must be a public stage of every Bill. As was set out by the Labour Party Back-Bench committee on the procedures of this House and echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, we are looking for dialogue, a genuine opportunity for people outside to influence what is said and what goes on in the House. We are looking for mechanisms that would make that possible.
	The speeches given by my forebear, the first Lord Lucas to sit in this House, a hundred years ago, were reported at length in newspapers—and incredibly boring stuff it is too. In those days, we could hand our views down as Moses handed down his tablets and have them paid attention to. That is absolutely not the case now, and I cannot see that it ever will be the case. The best that we could hope for in existing circumstances is to have the media as interlocutors for us. I do not share the despair of the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, at the fact that there are only a couple of people in the press box. That is good. There have been many debates when there has been nobody, nor any mention in the press afterwards to indicate that someone was watching on the telly. It is delightful that we have someone here.
	Members of the press have their own agenda and interests, and we cannot expect them to toady to us. It is no good us coming to them as supplicants, either; if we do that, they will merely shape what we say to suit their own needs and report that. That is what we get in so many of even the BBC's political programmes, which I enjoy listening to. The agenda is chosen by journalists; they choose who they want on the programmes, and a lot of the time they are not politicians at all but people talking about what politicians are saying. So we get the whole debate third-hand. That is how the media play it, because people enjoy listening to it. That is how we should expect the media to be. If we want to talk to the public, we have to find our own ways of doing it.
	My noble friend Lord Norton was absolutely right: an obvious way in which to talk to the public is to create a website that is usable by members of the public who want to know something about what we think and do on a particular subject. However, my noble friend should not underestimate the amount of work and structural change necessary to do that. We really need to get professional in information management. The tools and systems are there to do it, but we must bring ourselves up to date. We have to face up to the fact that we are living in a world where technology makes possible things that were not possible before. As Peers, we ought to have personal websites, or even weblogs to make ourselves accessible to people outside. I note that Politico's offers free websites to Members of the other place, but not to Peers. That is something that we should put right.
	If dialogue is to work, it will be crucially dependent on our ability to respond. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said that we should get out of this place and free ourselves; we should have a new building. This Chamber is all we need by way of a building; the rest can be provided by technology. What I lack is not space, but research facilities. If I had someone who could find things out for me, organise, carry out research, structure amendments and so on, or handle an interface with the public, it would make an enormous difference to my ability to do my job in this place. That is not on offer at the moment. It is pathetic how we hobble ourselves and allow ourselves to be limited and ineffective in our job by not having facilities that are there in abundance 100 yards to the north and in even greater abundance in Europe. Why do we limit ourselves in that way? It is not a reasonable thing to do.
	We do not need to think of buildings. It does not matter where researchers are located. They can be scattered all over the country or in a building somewhere in outer London. It does not matter because, given decent technological arrangements, we can communicate with them, and they can do their work wherever they may be. The business that I run, The Good Schools Guide, no longer has an office. Everything is distributed. There is no paper, no office. We do not need it.
	I know that many of my noble friends may not be as comfortable with the Internet as I am, but come on, jump in, welcome to the world. If we had the facilities that the Scots have provided for themselves in the Scottish Parliament, we might be able to make a good start. I do not think that it would cost much—£10 million or £20 million might be the end of it. We would be doing it in a way that was cost-effective and free of architects.
	We have to change, if we want what we do and say in the House to be respected. If we want to be part of the political process in this country, we must open ourselves to the public. We have to find ways of communicating with them effectively. It is in our hands. We are a House of Parliament, and we have the ability to do those things for ourselves. All that is required is the will and a certain amount of pressure on the usual channels.

Lord Puttnam: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for initiating the debate and for the very full and wise way in which he set out the topic. I identify myself with every word.
	I should be more than a little surprised if anyone this afternoon argued against the noble Lord's core proposition, although in a meeting last week a very senior parliamentarian made the point that, should the public become that much more familiar with the workings of Parliament, they could only recoil in horror at many of its processes and procedures. That is an extreme view, but not wholly without foundation.
	For the past eight months, as the noble Lord, Lord Holme, mentioned, I have had the pleasure of chairing a Hansard Commission, Parliament in the Public Eye. The work has been extremely interesting, if something of an eye-opener. I have been very fortunate in that the commission's members are a pretty distinguished group from politics, journalism and the academic world.
	We have now taken a great deal of evidence from a wide range of interests, both from within and from outside Parliament, and it has recently become increasingly clear what the outcome is likely to be when we publish our report a few months from now and—just as important—what has driven our conclusions.
	As your Lordships have heard already, there is a great deal of confusion about what is Parliament and what is government, but there is no evidence of a lack of interest. It is just that people—particularly the young—no longer believe that Parliament, let alone the Executive, really shares or understands their concerns. More precisely, they feel themselves marginalised and excluded from issues—climate change is a good example—on which they would like to focus and, if possible through debate, become that much more knowledgeable.
	Your Lordships will not be surprised to know that they want to be part of the debate, not merely passive observers to whom bits and pieces of probably sanitised information are thrown whenever the government of the day decide to part with it.
	Parliament is viewed from the outside as a small, exclusive but not especially attractive club with its own language and practices, most of which seem designed to exclude rather than include the average or even the interested citizen. Parliament, the public and the press are felt to share what would objectively be considered an essentially immature relationship. A number of parliamentary practices are seen as being manipulative, as indeed, on closer examination, a few prove to be.
	In a nutshell, the public are increasingly critical of the way in which the country is run. After eight months of looking at the problem, I believe that in many respects they have every right to feel somewhat disenchanted. It is certain that anyone who believes that the next generation is likely to be satisfied with being asked, once every four years or so, how they feel things are going is in for a very big shock.
	Three issues have emerged from our inquiry that seem to be of overwhelming importance if Parliament is to find ways of reconnecting with the legitimate expectations of the people. I say "people" rather than "electorate" because the young are such an important part of what I see very much as an opportunity.
	Our commission seems to have arrived at a consensus that whatever the qualities of this or that aspect of parliamentary life—and there are many—Parliament fails to present itself as the sum of its parts. As a result, much of what is best gets submerged in broad-brush criticism of the areas in which it palpably fails to meet the expectations of the world outside these walls. That almost certainly will call for significant levels of organisational change, including a management and communication structure that conforms to the pace and nature of the challenges facing all other aspects of public life.
	That leads naturally to the second consensus. Irrespective of the incremental improvements being made in almost all aspects of Parliament's work, the pace and, in some cases, the nature of change are failing to match that which is taking place in society at large. The result is that Parliament is not only failing to stay abreast of developments and opportunities but is, if anything, year on year, falling behind. One has only to look at the growth over the past 20 years in the cost and sophistication of the communication budget of any significant corporation, or even the government, to realise the urgency and significance of this afternoon's debate.
	Our third consensus is the area in which society as a whole has to step up to the plate. The level of informed, transparent and engaged democracy that any citizen of the 21st century has every right to expect will necessarily be comparatively expensive. I do not think that a cut-price democracy represents that much of a bargain. The British people have a right to be offered a vision of what is possible and what that is likely to cost. Their parliamentary representatives must then unblinkingly argue the case and stop apologising for seeking the resources they need to do the best job possible. Those who support a cut-price version should stand up and say so, but they must also be absolutely clear about the cost to open and engaged democracy that their version will achieve. There will always be more than one notion of what represents value for money, but in this area of civil society for me and, I suspect, for the noble Lord, Lord Norton, only the very best will do.
	Philip Stephens, in the Financial Times a couple of weeks back, finished his column by expressing the view that,
	"the future has been handled over to events".
	He was not speaking of Parliament at the time, but I had been reading an excellent book by Edward Pearce on the Reform Act 1832, entitled Reform, and what I got from the book was that reform came about only in the very nick of time.
	Why is it that so much that is important in our public life is addressed too little, too late and too cheaply? As has been said by more than one noble Lord, our forefathers fought for the rights that we have. They fought for Parliament and democracy, and they fought for the right to have free and fair elections. Yet we seem extraordinarily careless about protecting the information flow and the engagement that make that entire process worth while.

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for providing the opportunity to debate this subject. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, is a constitutional lawyer of high repute and he has often raised important issues about our political processes, sometimes raising a warning flag when active steps have to be taken to maintain an effective political system. We owe him a debt of gratitude for doing that. As the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has just said, sometimes we have to get there in the nick of time. In raising this debate we are perhaps just at that margin.
	Last year I became the chair of yet another independent commission looking into the state of political participation in Britain. Called the Power Inquiry it was established by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. That commission comprises Ferdinand Mount, who will be known to Members of this House as a former political adviser to the Conservative government, the president of the Women's Institute, the deputy General-Secretary of the TUC and representatives of sections of the community. The commission is composed not just of the great and the grand but also of people from community organisations, political activists and young members of the public. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, will be happy to hear that members of the ethnic minorities are well represented.
	We have been considering and taking evidence for three months and already it is clear to us that there is a deep well of frustration and disenchantment with traditional politics, which has been referred to by a number of previous speakers. Whereas in the past the public may have been divided around the principles and policies of Left and Right, people are now abandoning their tribal moorings. A sense of distrust of politicians and of the system in general seems to be shared by many. A very saddening result of our inquiry so far is the discovery of the feeling that involvement in politics is a waste of time. That sentiment is expressed by young people but also by people from ethnic minorities and generally by sections of the public who traditionally were actively engaged in politics.
	We should never underestimate the strength or depth of this disconnection between governor and governed. General election turnout may have dropped only recently but party membership has been in severe decline for 50 years. Local election turnouts have been low for decades and surveys have consistently found strong distrust of politicians since as early as the beginning of the 1980s. The decrease in membership of political parties should concern us because, of course, it is from the political parties that our politicians are drawn. Therefore, the pool is becoming increasingly smaller.
	The partisan arguments, which claim that this is the result of sleaze—that is the allegation made against Conservative governments—or spin—that is the allegation made against the Labour Government—are often wide of the mark. The overriding cause is the widespread sense that the average citizen has no real influence over the key political decisions that affect their lives. That is repeated over and over again. Endless consultations carried out by public bodies seem to have no clear impact. The recurring theme is that they are often seen by the public as a fig leaf rather than real account being taken of their views.
	There is also a sense that MPs are far more bound to the wishes of their party leaderships than to the views of their constituents. It is claimed that the one real formal power the citizen has—the vote—has been rendered meaningless by one party dominance and the similarity of the main parties' policies. Even if that is perception only, there certainly is a feeling among the general public that there is little to choose between them.
	The political parties are going through their own convulsions of having to reconfigure their identities in a very new context in which class is no longer such a powerful determinant of people's position in the world, and certainly not a determinant of voting patterns. Political parties have been poaching in each others voting pools for some decades now, and that is not confined to one political party. Members of the public say that there is uncertainty regarding what the parties stand for.
	Disenchantment with political processes is just the contemporary outcome of a much older historical trend. Our system of democracy, formed as it was in the 19th century, never took serious account of the fact that citizens at some later time might want more influence than a vote every few years. In those days and for much of the 20th century British citizens were expected to delegate decision-making to their political representatives on the grounds of their superior intellect or by virtue of the fact that they shared a common ideology, and therefore you could be sure that your political representative would reflect the things you believed in. However, that may no longer be so. In an era when citizens are ever more confident of their own ability to make informed decisions, and when the old ideologies no longer resonate, that traditional rationale cannot work. The 21st century citizen does not see why he or she should defer to the politicians they no longer regard as their betters, or to parties with which they no longer identify. We have to recognise that those underlying problems exist, and they are problems with which political parties will have to engage.
	Apart from anything else this analysis of the ways in which political parties are having to reinvent themselves applies in other mature democracies too. It explains why similar problems are occurring across nearly all of the older established democracies. The old way of explaining this by saying that we are all comfortable and therefore people do not vote because they do not feel the need to—the Galbraith notion that we are living perfectly well and therefore do not have the impulse to vote—is not the answer.
	The notion that such a deep-seated problem can be addressed by policies such as all-postal voting or electronic voting from your armchair is inadequate. Citizenship education is one of the things with which we must engage. However, only a determined strategy to address the citizen's sense of powerlessness will really resolve the disenchantment. Ironically we talk a great deal about public trust in politicians but there has to be mutuality in processes of trust. What is needed is a programme designed to show that politicians actually have enough trust in their citizens as well as the other way round. We should be involved in greater engagement with them.
	The good news is that such a strategy need not be conjured up anew. The Power Inquiry is exploring dozens of innovations and experiments across the world which are precisely designed to re-engage citizens with politics. They range from participatory budgeting in Brazil to youth councils in Finland to citizens' assemblies in Canada. I am hoping that we may be able to see in those better and more exciting ways of engaging the electorate.
	I was in the Computer Office the other day when someone said that they wanted a website but that they really would prefer eyesight. While I have sympathy with Members of our House who feel that way, I agree with others that we have to modernise our own processes for them to work better.
	As others have said, our democracy is vital but we have to revitalise it on a regular basis. I hope that the Power Inquiry will help our political masters to see that mastering is no longer the name of the game.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Norton for raising this subject so vital to our democracy and also for his penetrating introduction, particularly for drawing the distinction between party politicians and Parliament.
	When one asks people of all classes around the country why they think politicians are now held in such low esteem, one usually gets the answer that they are in it for themselves and tell lies to get what they want. If we have the courage to reflect on this accusation, we see that it is pretty near the mark, and increasingly so as time goes on. I suggest, as my noble friend Lord Dean mentioned, that part of the problem here is the rise of the professional politician, particularly in the House of Commons. They bear much of the responsibility for the perception that the truth no longer takes precedence over expediency.
	Indeed, if one watches a modern politician being asked a question it is fairly easy to read the thought process going on in his mind. It is not, "What is my best shot at a truthful answer to this question?", but rather, "How will the answer I give advance my career?", or perhaps, "What answer will damage my career least?" Perhaps it was ever thus. Indeed, to some extent I am sure it was but the growing absence from the other place of people who do not depend on their parliamentary or ministerial salary for their way of life must surely have exacerbated the problem until it has now become almost universal. There are, of course, many honourable exceptions.
	I know that this analysis oversimplifies this aspect of the problem, so may I go a little deeper and look at another unsatisfactory aspect of modern political life? Modern party politicians, particularly in the other place, seem to have one overriding ambition in their lives; that is, to acquire power. In order to acquire power—power, that is, to boss the rest of us around—they resort to a growing use of focus groups and opinion polls to ask the people what the people think they want. Our politicians then translate those wants into policies and offer them to the people in the hope that the people will vote for them and give them power. Missing from this modern routine are vision, leadership, courage, duty and service. I think that the people have seen through this system, even if they do not analyse it consciously, and they do not like it.
	In this regard, I had what was for me a memorable conversation the other day with my noble friend Lady Thatcher. She said, "I may have made a few mistakes when I was Prime Minister"—at which, of course, I demurred as I am sure most other noble Lords would have done. She went on, "but at least everyone knew where they were jolly well going!" Most people in the world today agree, whether or not they liked her policies, that my noble friend Lady Thatcher was our last great leader. You may not have shared her vision but you have to admit that she possessed it. I submit that you cannot really have leadership unless you first have vision; and then you need the courage, the energy, the duty and the service to see it through. When there is no vision the people perish.
	I do not offer a solution. I merely comment on one aspect of our present predicament. I would, however, suggest that vision comes from above; it does not come from focus groups.
	There are, of course, many honourable exceptions to what I have said but I fear that most of those exceptions are to be found here in your Lordships' House, which most of your Lordships attend out of a sense of duty and to give service.
	I fear it is inevitable that I must also point out that one of the main causes of public disengagement and disenchantment with Parliament is our relationship with the European Union. There are, I submit, two fundamental principles in the relationship between the public and Parliament, two pillars upon which our democracy rests. The first is the hard-won right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. The second is that the British people have given Parliament the power to make all their laws for them, but they have not given Parliament permission to give that power away.
	I fear that both those principles, for which over the centuries millions have willingly given up their lives, already stand betrayed by our membership of the European Union. Already huge areas of our national life which used to be controlled by this Parliament are controlled by the qualified majority vote in the Council of Ministers. For the record, those areas are all of our commerce and industry and environment, thanks to the Single European Act 1986, our social and labour policy, thanks to the social chapter, and our agriculture, fish and foreign aid. It appears that our immigration and asylum and direct taxation may have also been potentially ceded to the decision-making system in Brussels.
	If our Government or the Executive agree or are outvoted on a new law in those areas, then this Parliament must put it into British law, on pain of unlimited fines in the Luxembourg Court. The United Kingdom has only 9 per cent of the votes in the Council and you need about 30 per cent to block a new law.
	In addition, laws affecting our justice and home affairs and our foreign and security policy must also be rubber stamped by the House of Commons and your Lordships' House if they have been agreed by our Executive and the executives of all the other member states in Brussels. In other words, we still have a veto in those areas but if the Government do not use it Parliament has to acquiesce.
	It simply does not wash to say that our democracy is maintained because decisions are taken in the Council by Ministers who were elected as Members of Parliament. The point is that the House of Commons itself, whose members the people elect and dismiss, is excluded from the process except as a rubber stamp, and so is your Lordships' House.
	It is essential to remember that the people's pact is with Parliament: it is not with the executive or government of the day. The people elect or dismiss Members of Parliament once every four or five years and the Government are formed out of a majority of elected MPs. Only 60 per cent of the electorate now bother to vote in general elections and modern governments are supported by only some 40 per cent of those who do vote, or 24 per cent of the electorate. I submit that these temporary governments, always empowered by a minority of the people, do not have the right to break the great pacts upon which our sovereignty rests. Yet that is just what our membership of the European Union has done for the past 33 years.
	The Government now admit that over half of our major laws, and 80 per cent of all laws, originate in Brussels. No law passed in Brussels has ever been successfully overturned by Parliament. No wonder the people are disengaging from the process. Indeed, a recent opinion poll found that no less than 68 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds, and 65 per cent overall, would support our relationship with the EU being reduced to one of free trade—which means, in effect, leaving the EU. That is a quite remarkable result given that all our leading political parties and media have been telling the public for 33 years that membership of the European Union is vital to the national interest.
	In conclusion, noble Lords will have noticed, perhaps with relief, that I have not mentioned the proposed new constitution for the European Union. I have merely set out some of the bones of our present relationship with Brussels. There will, of course, be opportunities to debate the constitution. Suffice to say now that if it is enacted it will make the present situation very much worse and the public even more disenchanted with the way they are governed. I think that they have got this point too, which is why I trust that they will vote against it if they get the chance.

Lord Desai: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for introducing the debate. Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Parekh that there are five academics out of 13 speakers and, therefore, the special meeting of academics and parliamentarians is here and nowhere else. However, I found him much too satisfied with the relationship between the public and Parliament. I recall what I thought a rather splendid event, although everyone was shocked, when the fox hunters invaded the House of Commons. I remembered 1968 and student sit-ins, and so on. I know that I could penetrate the House of Commons with no problem. It is an archaic building which no one can guard. The sheer antediluvian arrangements of Parliament were exposed for everyone to see, with elderly men, encumbered by swords and unsuitable dress, trying to chase flexible, agile and athletic young people.
	However, the important point is that those people were there because they cared about what they wanted. People find frequently that Parliament is not a good vehicle for conveying the intensity of their beliefs in a cause. Political parties hold a portfolio of views on practically everything under the sun. If I care intensely for one specific issue, I cannot convey my intensity. I have only one vote. For example, I cannot convey the intensity of my belief when voting to keep or remove fox hunting.
	This parliamentary system of great and ancient lineage is proving inadequate because people want to be noticed with regard to specific issues rather than generalities. Broadly based political parties are dysfunctional. They are dinosaurs. We really want about 35 parties, and each party should be born and die quickly. They should be single-cause parties and disband themselves and move on. We have not realised that the way that we think of democracy and how voters feed in to Parliament is now totally inadequate. When their demands were broad—better housing, more employment or better health—they represented the whole of the community. Now, people have more particular demands and we have no way of reflecting that.
	Reflecting on the fine speech of my noble friend Lord Harrison, we do not make people feel welcome at all. You have only to see people queuing outside St Stephen's entrance to see how uncomfortable entry to Parliament is. As with Oxford and Cambridge colleges, it is never indicated where you are, because if you have to be told, you should not be there in the first place. Those of us on the inside know where we are; who are you to come in here? That kind of aristocratic, élitist facade continues centuries after our forefathers and, if one may put in a word for them, our foremothers, fought for those rights. We still treat the people with contempt.
	For example, why is the State Opening of Parliament not much more open? Why do ambassadors and such people come to sit around here? Why do not ordinary people come to sit around here? Why do we not hold it in a place where people can see what is going on—in Wembley Stadium, or something? I would prefer Westminster Hall as a nearer solution, but it is their Parliament, for heaven's sake, and they should be able to see what we are doing. It is not actually their Parliament; we do things in their name but do not want them around.
	As my noble friend described, the ordinary person walking around the Committee Corridor is made to feel extremely unwelcome. Government is our business, not theirs: "You just vote and go away". People are not going to do that. That is why people do not get legislative change by petitions; they get it by riots. Riot in Trafalgar Square, and the community charge comes down. That is how it came down; no amount of parliamentary activity brought down the community charge.
	Lastly, our procedures are time-wasting. The assumption is made both in the other place and here that once you have come here, your time is of absolutely no value. You stay here as long as the Whips want you to; the fact that you have nothing to do if you are not sitting in the Chamber does not matter. We do not have to provide you with anything to do: you are here; where else have you got to go? You cannot have anything better to do, you should feel honoured that you are here.
	For example, why do we have First Reading, Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading? Has anyone really found out what purpose that serves? Those of us who have been in enough of them know what a complete waste of time all committee meetings are. Why cannot we streamline? Why do both Chambers have to have the same procedure? As I have said before, why cannot we become a Committee of another place? They should have a Second Reading; we do the Committee and report back to them so that we do not have to do everything twice.
	Why cannot we learn to be more efficient? Why cannot we learn to be where the rest of the world is? Just because we are the oldest democracy in the world does not mean that we have to be the most inefficient.

Lord Sewel: My Lords, it is always a mistake to follow my noble friend Lord Desai, but I shall give it a try. First, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, on securing this debate on an important subject.
	The debate is very much couched in terms of the idea of the active citizen, the person engaged at all levels in the public life of his or her country. That does not mean that the individual citizen should be engaged all the time in the public life of his or her country; the whole system could not stand that. Understandably, people come in and out of political engagement at different times. For long periods of life, people have other and, dare I say it, better things to do than become involved in politics or engage with Parliament. That is right and good.
	Where the difficulty and danger lies is if there grows up a generalised sense of disillusion and cynicism, a sense that engagement is pointless because there is so much of a gap between those who make decisions and those who are subject to them. That is the theme of this debate and of a wider debate in our politics.
	Most noble Lords know that I am not uncritical of everything that happens in the Scottish Parliament. I would not follow my noble friend and suggest that we build a new building; I do not think that the Exchequer could take the strain. However, following what the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, said, it is worth seeing whether we can learn some lessons not only from how the Scottish Parliament committee structure works but how it was initially put in place. There are lessons there.
	The decision was taken even before the Parliament came into existence that it would be good to have a strong committee system built around subject committees. That makes it much easier to deal with issues. Several noble Lords have emphasised the importance of issues rather than party. That is absolutely right. If you have subject committees dealing with legislation and broader policy issues on the basis of an interaction between informing and engaging, that allows you to get depth of interest and focus. It enables the voices of the entrenched interest groups to be challenged. That is an important factor to take into account.
	That structure did not emerge overnight; it did not emerge by magic. It evolved over a fairly lengthy period through discussion with various representatives of areas of civil society in Scotland at the time. So there was a degree of agreement across the public life of Scotland, if you like, about how the Parliament should operate once it came into existence. My point is that you cannot get models of public engagement by adopting a top-down approach to how those models should be put in place.
	It is also possible to learn from our own experience. In 1996, there were two Scottish Bills, one dealing, if my memory serves me correctly, with crofting and the other with nursery vouchers. At the time, many of us thought that that was a pale imitation of devolution on offer. There were shortcomings, but a special committee was established. It went to Scotland and took evidence. It discussed the Bill with people in Scotland who were likely to be affected by it. It was not a perfect mechanism, but it was a start. It is a pity that we have lost that example and model; it could do with being reconsidered and perhaps further developed—not necessarily going to Scotland but to other far away places such as Birmingham or Manchester.
	In closing, I emphasise that it is too easy to say, "We realise that there is a problem with public engagement in Parliament; engagement is a good thing; we want you to engage and this is how you should engage". We need to do a bit of prior work and discuss with a wide range of people and interests what they think are the appropriate models of engagement.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to speak, for the first time, immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Sewel. He and I were introduced on the same day, now slightly over 10 years ago I regret to say, when we were both young.
	I apologise on behalf of my group that we are rather thinner on the ground than I had hoped. My noble friends Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Shutt of Greetland, who are actively engaged in this area, both had to be involved with the Charities Bill this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Shutt is engaged in the inquiry that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, is chairing on behalf of the Rowntree Trust. My noble friend Lord Holme has spoken a little of the Hansard Society inquiry, which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is chairing. A number of us are therefore engaged with the question.
	I suggest that after the next election, when we are all recovering from a fall to perhaps 50 per cent in turnout, possibly even lower, we shall all have to engage much more sharply with how we bring government back towards our citizens. One of the first things that it may be useful to do is to abandon the word "customer", when talking about government relations with citizens, and bring back the word "citizen".
	There is a broad issue behind this and also a much narrower and more practical set of issues. A number of noble Lords have spoken about the general decline in participation in western Europe and in North America, which has gone with the decline of mass society, mass organisations, church attendance, trades unions, Women's Institute membership et cetera over the past 20 or 30 years. It is not simply a British problem. Turnout in the deeply divided American presidential election was not that much higher than we expect the turnout in our election to be.
	When I hear people talk about the encouraging growth of non-governmental organisation involvement in Parliament, I worry that we are now approaching a divide between a minority of activists, mostly drawn from the professional service classes who are engaged in such activities, and the majority of disengaged or excluded, among whom one sees what one has to call the council estate population—the whites who are non-employed or only partially employed. While canvassing a rather smart estate in West Yorkshire last weekend, I was struck by the fact that those who were self-employed, some of whom appeared to be doing well, felt themselves to be cut off from politics. That is bad news for the Conservatives for the coming election. The majority of self-employed people to whom I spoke, in an estate that had two-garage houses throughout, thought that politics had nothing to offer them and said that they did not intend to vote.
	With regard to ethnic minorities, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that my happiest experience in the past year has been to speak to meetings of 300, 400, 500 people, but they have been British Kashmiris, British Gujaratis, British Punjabis, well organised in their communities. We understand that the British Caribbean population is not so effective in politics because it does not have the community links.
	The decline of deference is something that we all have to come to terms with. I have a wonderful memory, as a young candidate in Huddersfield in the late 1960s, of just catching the end of the age of deference—when I was introduced at my first meeting with the words "Dr William Wallace MA PhD. We're honoured to have him with us". You would not get that nowadays. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, thinks that people are a little confused about what they see a Lord as being. A while back, I went to give the prizes at the school at which a friend of mine is the headmaster. The car he had promised me at the station was not there, and so I approached a taxi. The woman driver said, "They've asked me to pick up a Lord but, since he hasn't come, I suppose I could take you". I should have grown mutton-chops in time.
	We have to change and adapt to a world in which people think about celebrities and no longer respect a political establishment. We all have to adapt, therefore, and not just decry the drift of public interest away from us and the media cynicism.
	I was brought up in the middle of the Church of England. I love the traditional Church of England service and the music that goes with it, which I sang as a boy; but I recognise that that does not attract the younger generation to churches. They need a different service, and the full churches are those that have adapted radically. Parliament has to follow the same sort of approach. That means talking about the image of Parliament and the ritual of Prime Minister's Questions, which for many people encapsulates what they see Parliament as being about and is also what they dislike about politics.
	I am struck by how deep the tradition of two-party adversarial politics is. My party has been running at 20 per cent in the polls over the past three years, but the newspapers still read as if there were only two parties in British politics. There are five parties from Great Britain alone—leave aside Northern Ireland—sitting in the House of Commons today.
	I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that that is actually more representative. We need more parties in Parliament of the right, the centre and the left, in order that more people can feel represented.
	We have a mass of legislation: far too much, far too ill considered. On occasions, I have spent a lot of time over the past three years talking to deeply sceptical teachers about the weight of new instructions that they receive each school year from the Department for Education and Skills and how unnecessary they feel much of it is. There is a new Minister and he or she has a lot of new ideas; there is a new Education Bill, and so the stuff comes in.
	There is executive domination, with ministerial outrage when Bills are challenged or changed. Part of the aggression that the current Government clearly feel towards this House arises because we dare to change ministerial proposals. That, however, is the job of any decent Parliament.
	We therefore need to change the style of Parliament in terms of representation and better considered legislation. Here we come to pre-legislative scrutiny, which is a radical proposal because it reduces the power of Ministers. It means that Ministers cannot take initiatives and announce them on the "Today" programme. I am strongly for it, but let us look it straight in the face and realise just how much it would change the relationship between government and Parliament.
	It would be better if we had fewer Ministers, more co-operation among parties and an end to one-party dominance based on a minority of the electorate. As I said recently to the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, people who come from local government to this House often have a much healthier attitude to politics because they have had to co-operate in local government.
	There are a number of smaller, more practical steps that we could take. Reference has been made to the Parliamentary Channel. I am amazed at how many people watch it. Someone passed me in the street in Saltaire the other week and said, "I know who you are. You may think I'm a nerd, but I watch the Parliamentary Channel". I wanted to say, "Yes, you probably are".
	We should perhaps think about holding some committee meetings ourselves outside Parliament, as part of an outreach to demonstrate that we are not a metropolitan elite. One of the reasons for considering moving our three legislative days from Monday to Thursday to Monday to Wednesday is that more of us would then spend more time outside London, which would be a healthy thing.
	We have a tremendous tension in Westminster between security considerations and the need to become more open. I strongly agree with all of those who say that our signage, our style and our welcome to visitors need to be reconsidered. I strongly agree also that we should open Parliament in Westminster Hall, with the Commons and the Lords sitting alongside each other and, preferably, with the Lords not sitting in rather outdated robes with bits of rabbit, or whatever it is, on them.
	Education is also an important issue: education for citizenship and education about British history and Britishness—an issue that is coming up in all the parties, I note. There was an excellent speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the British Council some months ago. Tim Collins raised it, I thought rather unhelpfully but at least he raised it, from the Conservative point of view. The Keynes Forum, a Liberal Democrat-associated body with which I am connected, is having a one-day seminar just after the election on what we mean by being British these days. It is an area in which we all need to engage. We therefore have a large post-election agenda.
	We should not be content with being a heritage backwater. I disagree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree: we must change our practices. I hope that we will also change our method of selection to one that is at least partly by election. We need to learn from the experience of other countries, such as the Nordic countries, which are much more active in teaching citizenship. We need to rebuild democratic participation from the bottom up, which means that we have to look at local government very sharply. We recognise that we have to go out and explain ourselves to the unengaged public and do all we can to involve them in what we do here at Westminster.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, everyone is very pleased with my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, and rightly so, because not merely has he introduced this excellent debate but he shows exemplary concern about the great and central issues of our institutions, our constitution and the role of Parliament, which we would all do well to follow.
	In the light of the Motion, the key issues that we must clarify are: what do we mean by the public and public opinion, and what do we think are the nature and role of this Parliament with which we want to see the public properly engaged? I have very little doubt that, with the onset of the information revolution, the role of Parliament—I refer to Parliaments everywhere but especially this one—and particularly that of the second Chamber, the Upper House, is changing significantly, as my noble friend Lord Lucas indicated. I shall come to that in a moment. Big changes are afoot.
	First, I pose an even deeper question; it is not too philosophical, I hope. In thinking about public engagement, do we have faith in the public's understanding and judgment, and believe that if facts are honestly expressed and put before the public, they will steer political reality? Alternatively, do we believe, like many very distinguished people in the previous century, including Walter Lippmann among others, that the public are incapable of mastering the facts and therefore are always susceptible to distortion and media manipulation, whether by politicians, media campaigns, lobbies or PR experts? I stand in the former camp, but I can see that it is plainly a minority position. Nowadays people in government, the press and PR clearly believe that the public can always be manipulated and sold this line or that, and that therefore facts and opinion can be elided and accuracy in reporting facts can take a second place to promoting a cause or line.
	As that has taken place there have been predictable results. Going back well into the previous century, rather than in recent years, people have come increasingly to distrust politicians and to view their dissembling, self-contradiction and statements with enormous scepticism. So the gap has been filled over the past 50 years by the advent and rise of media politics. Today a large part of the political process takes place not in the Palace of Westminster but in the media forum and on the media stage, where careers are made and broken and opinions formed. That was the case long before the information revolution really took hold in the last decade of the previous century, but that has vastly accelerated the trend.
	The American academic Philip Bobbitt, in his profound book The Shield of Achilles, makes the point well that previously the political Left always did the job of being the constant critic of the government and the establishment, whether Left, Right or centre. But with the discrediting of the old Left in this market-dominated age, and with Left parties moving quickly to the new centre, which when I first entered politics was called the Right—it is now called the centre or even the centre-Left—the competitive critical function has been taken over by the media.
	As Bobbitt says, the problem is that the media are untrained in the task, either ethically or politically, of performing this critical role in a balanced way. They have no incentive to offer different or alternative and improving amendments, programmes, strategies or ideas. The media tend to ignore as boring or dismiss anything constructive or striking out on a new line. That simply is not their role. The trouble is that they do not carry out that role, which they have taken over from us, very well at all. They are particularly incapable of challenging the current political consensus and prevailing views. As a result we have reached the fascinating point where people have come to view the media with the same degree of scepticism, distrust and disappointment with which they previously viewed politicians and Parliament.
	That brings us to today. This is the opportunity for our political institutions to win back lost ground and show that honest and accurate presentation of the facts, only then followed afterwards, and clearly distinguished from, opinions about merits, and always combined with weighing up reasonably the advantages and disadvantages of courses chosen, is the new currency that people can trust.
	We should aim for that. But, to go along that path, Parliament, and certainly this House, must have a clear view of what we can offer—the product for sale, so to speak. I do not argue that it is all about marketing, let alone advertising. As recent blunders by, dare I say it, the governing party confirm, admen do not always understand the politics of public affairs and their ideas should always be carefully filtered. There may be exceptions but it seems the general situation.
	I add as gratuitous advice to the Government from this Dispatch Box that any talk of "selling" or pushing for sale something to the public is always off-putting and counterproductive. That is why it is highly unwise of the Government to go on about "selling" to the public the European constitution, which my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch mentioned. If it needs all that hype and sales push, a wise public—in a democracy, one must trust the public wisdom—will simply ask, "What is wrong with this product that it needs pushing so hard?".
	With what are we in this House asking the public to engage? It is obvious that the House of Commons is the democratic cockpit, which makes good copy. It is upstaged nowadays by the political battle in the media and on television, but it continues to be a healthy part of the noisy democratic process and ongoing debate.
	Your Lordships' House is different; we are supposed to be the calming, moderating influence, performing the same role as the cooling chamber on a Watts steam engine or the governor on a motor: essential, not very glamorous, but nevertheless central. Possibly we can do that a little better, as we do not have the disadvantage, to which my noble friend Lord Pearson referred, of having careers agitatedly to advance. Most of us have not much career left to advance, so that should give us a better position from which to argue.
	That is why bringing the poison of extreme partisanship—not all partisanship—into the House of Lords is so damaging to the public's respect for our peculiar role. I am thinking of the kind of point-scoring practised recently by some Ministers, I am afraid, at the Dispatch Box in this House. Frankly, it sounds absolutely pathetic. I strongly advise those who practise it to desist.
	We are supposed to be a cooling not an agitating Chamber, lowering the temperature not raising it. We do that by amendments in the legislative process, which is sometimes very tiresome and boring, but necessary; by analysis and debate; and by excellent committee work, through scrutinising and reporting. We are, and are capable of presenting ourselves as, a large and relatively independent think tank—if not totally independent then at least giving a platform for all sorts of different viewpoints, including some that are mould-breaking and not just conforming to current conventional wisdom.
	Certainly, we do not want to sound too efficient. For once, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai. I know that the word "efficiency", when it comes from the Government Benches, means "ram the legislation through". We do not want to be efficient in that sort of way.
	I fully understand the difficulties in which those persons charged with promoting and publicising the House of Lords are placed. If they sing the praises of this place too much, then, like my noble friend Lord Dean of Harptree, I would be quite happy to defend the status quo. But I realise that that is a controversial position and that a lot of people do not want to defend the status quo. So it is difficult to go down that line. Of course, if they tangle with issues and policies, they are in danger of falling into partisan matters.
	Nevertheless, a number of things can be done. The House of Lords could be repositioned in the new context that the informational age creates, which, as I say, applies not just to this Parliament but to Parliaments everywhere. More could be done to talk up forthcoming debates and explain why the issues are so crucial—for instance, constitutional matters, energy issues, overseas development or any of the great global issues. More could be done to make media access much easier in the Palace of Westminster, including access for foreign media personnel. Washington, for example, is as security conscious as we are, but it is much more open to allowing foreign correspondents to get a pass.
	More could be done to explain to the public, via schools and information networks of every kind, the crucial dual—or even triple—roles of the second Chamber in the bicameral system. Above all, politicians and government officials should give up manipulation and relearn the fine art of persuasion, which I have described. There should be far more candour and humility from the top about what national governments can and cannot achieve and there should be far more reticence in making extravagant commitments about goals that any informed person knows full well are out of reach. Finally, there should be far more effort to escape the prison of jargon and to find new, more intelligible and useful ways of explaining how the world really works.
	Then we might see a somewhat disillusioned public—now vastly more informed, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, rightly indicated—turn back from the inevitable short-termism and often amazingly uniformed media to the more thoughtful and longer-term perspectives that this House in particular can offer, and to the institutions that down the ages have protected their liberties.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, this has been a most stimulating and interesting debate, which has covered a very wide range of issues. I share the anxiety mentioned by my noble friend Lord Harrison, who had a wistful look at the Press Gallery but did not notice how many representatives of the press were there to hear our debate today. My noble friend indicated that we might be wasting our sweetness on the desert air, although I think that he thought that we were the dessert course when it came to BBC reporting of Parliament.
	We recognise that there is an issue about how we communicate with the wider public, which we share with the other place. It is acutely aware of the statistics reflected in today's debate on the declining participation in elections. However, noble Lords were wise to indicate that there are more ways of participating in the political process than the act of voting. As my noble friend Lady Royall indicated, the act of voting has been so significant for those countries which have recently enjoyed that right. We all applaud when people fulfil that democratic duty in the context of real danger.
	Perhaps our secure and mature democracy engenders a degree of complacency with regard to the act of voting, but our citizens are active in many other ways. As noble Lords have indicated, single-issue politics are with us in terms of representation. Every Member of Parliament will tell how he gets deluges of correspondence on particular issues. That is why I warmed to the proposal that we might, at times, with regard to our Select Committees, recognise the value of specific issues and greater publicity.
	I do not underestimate the difficulties. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, not just for this debate, which he introduced so ably, covering all the major issues, which were followed up by other speakers, but also for his chairmanship of the Constitution Committee over a number of years. We appreciate the work that he has done.
	The noble Lord asked me, as did the noble Lord, Lord Holme, when the Government will produce their response to the committee's report. We expect to reply within the six-month deadline. Some of the issues that have been raised today will inform the Government's response to the report. We will certainly consider the various recommendations which, in some cases, have profound resource implications.
	Some of the issues are directed at government and what they can do directly with their resources. I hope that I will give a satisfactory answer to some of those points. Other issues relate to House authorities and how we and the other place can successfully organise our business and communications. I am greatly impressed with the degree of insight into those issues that has been demonstrated. Several noble Lords followed the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in indicating that some of our committees need to get outside the Palace of Westminster and the advantages to be derived from taking specific issues to the people.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, mentioned science. She drew a very nice parallel between the importance of science issues being communicated effectively to the lay public and the difficulties that scientists also face in their discrete area, which parliamentarians are also addressing. I have every sympathy with the noble Baroness.
	I once went to a conference in the United States, which was attended by very distinguished scientists and parliamentarians. I am not a scientist, nor a distinguished parliamentarian, but I was delighted to be at that conference, save for one thing. The gap between the representatives of politics and the scientific community in the United States was quite terrifying. The agenda was a green issue.
	When we talk about communicating across generations and more effectively to young people, we should recognise how much concern about the planet and green issues figure in their debates. At the conference, it was clear that the German and British politicians and scientific communities could sing largely from the same hymn sheet. But it was a hymn sheet that was utterly and totally denied by every American politician who was present. Even when top-level scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology emphasised the issues with regard to global warning, there was a straight denial. That was a clear case of the gap that can open up between science and the public, and how important it is to bridge that gap.
	I note the reservations that were expressed about Parliament and its current work, but in such areas we have been part of the general debate. I do not think that there is a Member of Parliament who does not think that science and scientific issues are a very important part of the political agenda.
	I also want to emphasise the part for which the Government are directly responsible. Several noble Lords referred to the citizenship agenda in schools. Of course, a citizenship agenda is about political process. If one is to translate aspiration into, ultimately, effective action, it has to be. But it is also important that we start from the young person's understanding of issues. That is why the citizenship agenda has to be a series of building blocks.
	The Government deserve some credit from this House for having launched citizenship in schools. We need additional resources. I shall not make a political point-at this stage because I admired a great amount of what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said about petty point scoring from the Dispatch Box. However, he will recognise that we are getting into the three or four most tempestuous months of this Parliament. I respect what he says, but I think he recognises that we take pride in the extent to which we have introduced citizenship education in schools. A lot remains to be done and additional resources are needed. Indeed, the plea for those resources has been made on all sides of the House.
	The reports referred to by my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and the Hansard Society inquiry being chaired by my noble friend Lord Puttnam are important in this area. We need to make sure that the education system as a whole recognises that the issues we are confronting are not confined to Britain. While it is easy to berate ourselves as failing the nation by our inability to communicate successfully, it is the case that all mature democracies face real problems with participation, an issue reflected in the turnout to vote. Although the Americans are congratulating themselves on the increased participation in the recent elections, voter turnout in the US was still a long way below British participation at its worst.
	However, it must also be recognised that if people lose faith in parliamentary institutions, democracy is under threat. I want to balance that by emphasising that we can achieve a great deal with citizenship education in schools and to point out that we are making progress in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, mentioned the work of the Information Unit and the excellent work done to produce high quality documents under the guidance of Mary Morgan. The noble Lord mentioned the fairly limited print runs, and we recognise the problems in communicating effectively with all the millions for whom we are responsible. Nevertheless, a person making a visit to this House should understand fully the workings of the House. We are improving our performance in this respect.
	I accept entirely a point made by my noble friend Lord Harrison, along with other noble Lords, on the question of access. We are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea here. I came to the other place at a time when there were no security guards at all. People could just wander in through St Stephen's Entrance. However, to do so was still pretty daunting. The notion that people would flock in with glee, knowing that they had come to their own Parliament and around which they could wander freely was somewhat belied by the fact that the odd police officer was stationed to caution people about where they could go. Moreover, the building itself is full of 19th century Gothic Revival grandeur and therefore puts people at some disadvantage.
	We all have to recognise the new dimension that has developed over recent years with regard to security. There can be no doubt that every security defence we organise produces in turn a barrier in terms of political participation. I heard reference made to "better days" by the noble Lord, Lord Dean, when people could move around easily and feel more at home. I am not sure whether that was altogether true, but that situation was bound to change once the public galleries became the source of potentially serious assaults on our leaders. We are bound to have anxieties on that score and we have to strike a balance.
	However, I agree entirely that there can be no excuse for not producing adequate information, in particular with regard to committees. The procedures and work of our committees are absolutely bewildering if one visits them without adequate information. We have made progress on this front. Our Select Committees provide information about the subject they are considering and details on membership, although we could do a great deal more on the provision of information, and probably need to do so. But the political process is difficult given that the major burden of our work is legislation, which presents its own problems if one only drops in on the process. If one is fortunate enough to hear the Second Reading of a Bill, one can enjoy hugely the debate on principle, while coming in during the Committee or Report stages means witnessing arguments that have been narrowed down to specific points. That is much more difficult in terms of communication.
	That is also why Prime Minister's Questions are so hugely popular. We can all relate to that. However, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, suggested that the constant conflict of adversarial politics might not be to everyone's taste. It is not an instance of the cool, reasoned politics for which the Liberal Party has always been known, even when in government. Lloyd George always presented his views in the most measured and conciliatory way to the nation, particularly when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hear what the noble Lord says about adversarial politics, but there are times when political parties clash over real issues and those storms need to be heard by the nation. They reflect the authenticity of the necessity of choice—and choice is what democracy and the vote ultimately are all about, although I agree that choice needs to be well informed.
	Several noble Lords asked whether Parliament is sufficiently modern in the processes it uses for communication. I have some good news on that point. Although the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, challenged me on this issue, we do produce an enormous amount of material on the parliamentary website, much of it produced for free. I cite for example Hansard, committee reports, forthcoming business, copies of Bills and the amendments tabled to them. I can assure the noble Lord that officials are constantly looking at new ways of improving accessibility on the website, but I take on board the points he made in his contribution to the debate.
	Noble Lords will be pleased to learn that, from the early summer, the BBC Parliament website expects to broadcast the House of Lords live over broadband with captions so that viewers will know who is speaking and what they are speaking about—by which I mean that they will know which subject is being addressed. Whether viewers understand the full and subtle detail of the points being made will depend very much on the level of performance to which we should all adhere.
	I want to emphasise that we are not standing still on these issues at Westminster. It is always a question of reaching agreement on where improvements can be made, but real resources are available. These developments must be properly addressed to the House authorities, which I appreciate sounds like a form of escape clause for a Minister at the Dispatch Box. However, I do not seek to thrust responsibility on others, but merely to point out that we have the usual channels where agreement is reached. It is true that the Government have an interest in the usual channels, a point that would have been brought to my immediate attention by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, had I not confessed it first. Noble Lords will recognise that I am referring to parliamentary resources which are put to use for the good of the wider community. Debates of this kind help to advance that cause and I hope that we will make considerable progress on these issues.
	However, I have to say that certain parts of the debate have jarred a little. I cannot conceive of the glorified amateur being the better politician than the so-called committed professional. The glorified amateur tended overwhelmingly to be represented in the Conservative Party while the Labour Party was never anything other than professional. Well, if right has always been on the Conservative side, I can say only that the last century that those Members lived in was different from the one I lived in, so we reach different judgments about it. Further, I do not see in the other place today a great deal of difference in the composition of the two main parties. In so far as there is a difference, I find that issues of principle, commitment, rectitude and political judgment are as much to the fore among professional politicians as they ever were among glorified amateurs. And if it is argued that glorified amateurs do not have vested interests, the vested interest of the professional politician is to get elected. While that can take crude forms at certain times, so can the prejudices of the amateur.
	Looking at the nature of our debates, and I reflect on the fact that none of us is paid to be here, one cannot pretend that there is an automatic and easy balance between interests in this House. Let me take the most obvious example. How many times are issues of wealth and the concerns of the poor addressed in this House through Questions in comparison with, let us say, agriculture and fishing? By any calculation, the answer is clear. So we should recognise that glorified amateurs are not always over-representative of some sections of our community.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised the question of the representation of ethnic minorities and referred particularly to the Caribbean community. We take pride and delight in the fact that the Caribbean community is represented in this House, and increasingly so in the other place, but it is still greatly under-represented. This is not a question of whether there is sufficient political interest; it is a reflection of whether we can succeed in producing representation and engagement for such communities. We are making progress but we need to do more. All ethnic minorities are under-represented in British politics in every respect and we have a great deal of work to do in those terms.
	I am coming to the end of my response to the debate against a background where I know that I have been remiss and not mentioned every contribution. However, noble Lords will recognise that they have covered a wide range of issues and that they have been part and parcel of a debate on a subject about which we all care greatly.
	I omitted to mention the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, seeking to be conciliatory rather than adversarial at this stage. I recognise that he made a slight polemical remark about the greatest politician of recent years, the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher. She is also the person, of course, who signed the Single European Act. The noble Lord asserted that we are losing power to Europe, and so there is a slight contradiction there. But I shall not be controversial today. I am merely reflecting the challenge in the noble Lord's speech.
	In many ways this has been a challenging and heart-warming debate which has seen the House at its best. We are committed to advancing the cause of effectiveness in our work and our obligations to people outside. We are not directly elected but we subsist to a great extent on public money and we have obligations to do our job as well as possible. The quality of the debate today indicates that we intend to do so.

Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, several contributors have stressed that politicians are not trusted. In recent surveys, hardly anyone has been found to trust politicians to tell the truth. The same surveys show that about 80 per cent of those questioned trust professors to tell the truth, so I should stress that today I am speaking in my role as a professor.
	I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. The number of speakers and the positions they hold attests to the importance of the debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said, a number of other noble Lords who are in Grand Committee or other meetings had planned to speak. My noble friend Lord Elton, who had hoped to be present, has stressed the need for Ministers to make policy statements in Parliament and not outside.
	It is clear from what has been said that much more needs to be done to increase public engagement with Parliament. That is not simply a generalised or pious hope; concrete steps can be taken to increase such engagement. I very much welcome, therefore, many of the suggestions made by noble Lords today.
	There is clearly a broad measure of agreement encompassing all parts of the House. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that we need people to feel that, if they want to express their particular views, if they wish to protest, the place to head is Parliament. It is when protestors are not heading for Westminster that we need to worry. It is vital that this place remains the focus of attention.
	I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, the Minister, for his response and not least for his comments on the need for additional support for citizenship education. Clearly, government support is important but, ultimately, as my noble friend Lord Lucas said and as the Minister reiterated, responsibility for change is a matter for Parliament. Crucially, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, indicated, there has to be the political will to achieve the changes that need to be made.
	I hope that today's debate, at the very least, shows that there is a growing awareness of the need to act and—I echo the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam—that time is of the essence. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Children in Care

{**NM**}

The Earl of Listowel: rose to call attention to the prospects of children cared for by local authorities; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, the Minister recently drew attention to the fact that a quarter of the adult population in prisons had had experience of care. Theresa May, the spokesman for families for the Conservative Party, said that a third of 18 to 20 year-olds in custody had had an experience of care. I understand that about half of the children in custody have had experience of care.
	A survey from the 1990s—it is somewhat out of date—reported that a quarter of girls or women leaving care were pregnant by the time that they left care. A further report suggested that, within two years, a half of the girls and women leaving care were mothers. We also know from the recent report of the Government's Social Exclusion Unit that if one's mother has been in care one is two and a half times more likely to enter care oneself.
	Some years ago, as I sat with a young man in Piccadilly Circus outside the Burger King restaurant there—a young man with a long, dark, dirty beard, filth in his fingernails and a crack pipe by his side—a young woman whom I had seen earlier begging for money on the steps of Piccadilly Circus Tube station approached him to discuss how they might spend their money to buy drugs for themselves. I knew then that there was a more than even chance that one of those two had spent time in local authority care. So the prospects for many children in care are not what we would wish them to be.
	However, many young people leave care and do extremely well. They run businesses, and they become actors on the screen and television. They even become Members of your Lordships' House, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen, informed the House some time ago during, I think, the helpful and important debate on the education of children in care that the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, introduced in 2000.
	There are approximately 60,000 children in care. About 40,000 of those are in foster care; about 6,000 are in residential care; and the remainder are in other settings. The majority of those have lower support needs, but still they do not do as well as we would wish them to do. A significant minority have high support needs because of the experiences they have had before entering care.
	The one point that I wish to emphasise to your Lordships today is that the needs of all these children—particularly of the most damaged children among them—have not been recognised adequately in the past. We have not trained, supported or remunerated those who care for those young people, with dire consequences for them. The residential childcare workers and the foster carers—I think the noble Earl, Lord Howe, will include adoptive parents as well—need support. That is the key point that I wish to make in the debate.
	Last night we heard a clinician working with the Oxford Parent Infant Project speaking to parliamentarians about the latest research into the development of a child's brain and the crucial period in the first year of life. The relationship with the mother at that time affects the way in which the frontal cortex of the brain develops, and the frontal cortex is vital in regulating and controlling the emotions. Some of the children coming into care will have lacked that kind of attention when very young. There is a further period of spurting growth in the frontal cortex during adolescence.
	I very much welcome the emphasis that the Government place on the need to address instability. There is such a high number of different placements for children in care, particularly for those most damaged. They have the most placements because they are the most difficult to manage. We do not adequately support the carers. The son of John Bowlby, who was the foremost theoretician in this area, asked how many times a child could fall in love. At the end, if they have to experience so many different placements, they will say, "I've had enough". They can be so damaged, but there is little that can be done to help them deal with their emotions and to lead their life.
	There are so many issues affecting such children in care and after they leave. I regret that there is not time this evening to do justice to them all. I shall concentrate on areas with which I have had a little acquaintance in the five years that I have been in your Lordships' House. I am particularly concerned about the training of residential childcare workers. In 1998, 70 per cent to 80 per cent of such workers had no relevant qualification for working with children. The Government set a target that 80 per cent of such workers should have a National Vocational Qualification Level 3 by January of this year. They have not succeeded in reaching that target. The new qualification is a welcome step forward, but it is a very basic award.
	On the Continent, such workers have two to three years' training at university for work in such an environment. In Germany and Denmark, most care is provided in residential settings rather than in foster Settings, so many of the children are not as challenging as those whom we place in our residential childcare settings. That matter needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency.
	A consequence of the failure adequately to train staff in such settings is that the work has become bureaucratised. We have depended on inspectorates and regulations to manage the people at the front line. Gradually—for understandable reasons, such as the history of abuse in care—they have, to a degree, lost their creativity and confidence as workers.
	There is a recent report on work on the Continent. They show staff reports on what they did the last time they helped a young person with problems. They were asked about their responsibilities as regards the child whom they knew best. Fifty-nine per cent of the English staff said that their main responsibility was to follow procedures. Five per cent of the Danish workers and four per cent of the Germans responded in that way. Ninety seven per cent of the Danish staff said that their main function was to support the children in a children's home, as did 93 per cent of the German staff. Only 41 per cent of the staff in English children's homes responded in that way. That is understandable, given the history.
	The remuneration of staff in children's homes in no way reflects the difficulties of the tasks we are asking them to carry out. In a recent article in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee reported on an interview that she had had with an investment manager. It was a discussion about private children's homes. She wrote:
	"As a possible investor, I called the City broker to find out more".
	She said:
	"There is nothing in the prospectus . . . about the cost of the staffing".
	The reply was:
	"Oh, it's not that much . . . Carers will only cost £12,000–£15,000 a year".
	The conversation continued:
	" 'So little?', I asked, thinking of the highly specialised needs of these children. 'I agree', he said. 'I was surprised at what care staff are earning'".
	Perhaps there is another relevant quotation from the article for noble Lords who believe that the best response would be simply to close all children's homes. Polly Toynbee asked why councils would spend all that money when they could halve their costs by running their own care homes and was told:
	"many closed down all their homes and went in for fostering, but now find that they do need homes as well".
	I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, will shortly meet members of the Commission for Social Care Inspection to discuss how to remedy some of the problems. We need an urgent response to this tradition, which has continued for far too long.
	I shall not discuss education today because there is an Education Bill and I have been able to raise a number of concerns in the past. I know that the Minister recognises that we are not doing what we should in improving educational attainment for children in care.
	I turn now to advocacy for children in care. Given the neglect of this area of foster care and residential childcare for so many years, it is vital that the voices of children in care are well heard and that they are empowered to express themselves. Voice for the Child in Care (VCC) is a charity of which I have been patron for the past five years. It produced a document entitled Stories From Young People In Care: Shout To Be Heard. Two boys, Ian and Robbie, are brothers. Ian is 14, and Robbie is 12 years old. A year ago, there was a plan to move them from their foster home, but they wanted to stay. Their foster parents got an advocate from VCC to help them. They said:
	"Our mother died three years ago and our aunt and sister tried to look after us. They could not cope and we got put in care. We were placed in a children's home and then we were moved to our foster home. We felt scared and angry when we were moved, but we settled in and we expected to stay here until we grew up. Our care plan said that we would stay in our foster home with a view to permanency. We planted a tree in a local cemetery in memory of our mother".
	Then they learned that the social services were planning to move them from that placement. They said:
	"We got a woman called Mary from VCC to help us. She asked us what we wanted and then went to speak to social services. Mary came to our review meetings. If we did not understand anything, she explained it to us. We usually found these meetings very difficult, just the two of us, with six or seven adults. Mary helped social services and the fostering agency to come to an agreement about money and we were allowed to stay in our foster home".
	That is typical of the work that the VCC does. It has recently extended into young offender institutions, which is very important and needful work.
	The VCC and the National Children's Bureau have a project looking at how one might develop a care system that better reflected the needs of children in care. It is entitled the Blueprint project, and its report, published last year, Start With a Child, Stay with a Child, has a number of number of recommendations that I wish to refer to.
	As regards our culture of care and that on the Continent the report states:
	"It has been suggested by contributors to Blueprint that a consequence of a more regulated and rule-bound culture within social services has been a loss of autonomy and confidence among the front line staff".
	Its key recommendation is that,
	"there should be an investment in developing a workforce with a child-centred approach. The Government's workforce strategy should give priority to enhancing the skills of the front line workers and managers".
	I am grateful to the Minister and his department for being supportive of the project and for taking an interest in it.
	In conclusion, I ask the Minister whether he acknowledges that we are neglecting to invest adequately in foster carers and residential childcare workers. If so, does he acknowledge that that neglect must be remedied with the utmost urgency, if we are significantly to improve the prospects for children in local authority care, particularly the most vulnerable of them?
	I have drawn some inspiration from a painting of the Archangel Raphael and Tobias hanging in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. The young Tobias is on a long and dangerous journey, accompanied and protected by the angel. The theme was popular in the 15th century. In one example, there is a prayer:
	"Stay by my side as you stayed by Tobias in his travels".
	Those who daily, weekly, monthly or yearly stay by the side of sometimes very troubled and troubling children are somewhat like angels. If we want angels these days, we need to ensure that they are appropriately trained, supported and remunerated. I beg to move for Papers.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, it is a delight to follow the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I thank him for introducing this important subject. My maiden speech in this House was in a small debate also arranged by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the need for counselling services for young people leaving care. My speech was three minutes long. That was two minutes more than I needed to convey what I knew about the subject at the time. That debate sparked my interest in a subject about which I had never thought before. The dedication of the noble Earl to this subject in this House keeps me thinking about it. Today, I pay tribute to the noble Earl for that and thank him very much.
	I suspect that many of the speakers today will contribute on the subject of education, but I want to look at issues of health. In the short time that I have available to me, I want to look at the role of social services departments and statutory authorities in looking after the most socially excluded of all children, who are most prone to health neglect and unhealthy lifestyles and who have some of the greatest mental health needs.
	Looked-after children are the epitome of the inverse care law. Not only may their health have been jeopardised by abusive and neglectful parenting, but care may fail to repair that damage and may create further damage. A study by Jackson in 2000 found that looked-after children fared worse for routine dental care, immunisation status and health-threatening behaviour. Emotional and behavioural problems were more prevalent, despite the high level of mental health referral, and very few children received the treatment that they needed. Less than 50 per cent of healthcare plan recommendations had been carried out.
	Statutory annual health assessments for children are seen as one of the cornerstones of their life in care. But, in reality, healthcare assessments are patchy. More than that, children view their annual medicals as irrelevant and dispiriting episodes. The assessments do not concentrate on many of the things that the rest of us take for granted, such as oral and dental health.
	Many looked-after children have disrupted school lives. They tend to enter and leave care settings very frequently, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said. Therefore, they fail to pick up on curriculum subjects such as PHSE and their informal health education, which many teenagers have, is disrupted.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, gave some figures about early pregnancy among care leavers. It is interesting to look at what lies behind that statistic. I was intrigued to find that when one talks to children who have been in care, they often do not see pregnancy as a bad thing. They see it as bringing them a role that they value.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is right that there are many examples of people who have made it through the care system and have done well. They are often sports people, for whom the defining point in their life was engaging in sport and discovering something that they were good at, and at which they could do well.
	It has to be said that the Government have not been shirking on this issue. There has been a baffling array of initiatives such as Quality Protects, the National Childcare Strategy, Sure Start, education action zones, health action zones and employment action zones. But when one looks at a given area, it is difficult to see the impact of these piecemeal, often very short-term, initiatives—which come with targets and bureaucracy, the like of which one never sees in any other walk of life—as an effective base on which to build a strategy for children. Furthermore, despite all those initiatives, we do not have the routine, baseline collection of statistics about the lives of children from which to evaluate the impact of the initiatives.
	I was intrigued by the noble Earl's comparisons with abroad. It was extremely telling when he talked about following procedures. In 2002, the Government produced a comprehensive document promoting the health of looked-after children. It looks at the participation of children and young people in the development of services, assessments of their health needs that recognise the inequalities that they have experienced, the arrangements for the design and delivery of service and effective parenting for vulnerable children. It is a very big document. I have read it a couple of times and it reads like one set of corporate priorities laid on top of another. It is packed with flowcharts and systems. At the end, one wonders what it would be like to be a child who is having that lot done unto him. It is not a very comfortable feeling.
	That said, it is preferable to the business prospectus mentioned in the article by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian the other day. I am very glad that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to it. It is one of the most shocking articles that I have seen in a national newspaper for a very long time. He is dead right to draw our attention to it.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, very helpfully organised a briefing the other night in which many of the noble Lords taking part in this debate got the chance to talk to young people and to people working for Shaftesbury in a number of London boroughs. For me, the most startling revelation was that many children in residential care have contacts with their family. Those contacts may be episodic and chaotic and may not be with their parents, but they have them and they mean something to them. However, they are often ignored by the people who are providing services. That led me to think that we often see the provision of residential care as being quite separate from the family unit. It is difficult to see a clear intent in the Government's documents to recognise that children have come from families and that their goal is to return to families—if not to return to their own birth family, then to create successfully their own family. That ought to be the focal point of all their healthcare.
	In the meeting, we talked about how the education system might help. There is a great deal to be done to assist young people who are looked after in residential care to understand and access healthcare systems for themselves, as one would as a private individual. The workers from Shaftesbury talked revealingly about engaging health professionals to come into residential homes to talk to children, not just about their immediate health problems, but also about the healthcare system. That is a model of integration that we should begin to look at and which has much to commend it.
	Finally, I shall speak about a method of assessing children's needs in the design of services. I have spoken on this subject before. It is called family group conferencing. We touched on the issue during the debate on the Adoption and Children Act. As many noble Lords know, family group conferencing is a mechanism where extended family members and friends are given support and the opportunity to take a lead in deciding how best to meet the needs of children in care who need help and protection. Here and in places such as New Zealand it has proved extremely effective at reuniting children with their families and avoiding the need for residential placements—avoiding court proceedings, in many cases—and reducing the time that children spend awaiting permanency decisions. However, the service is patchy in this country and is not available in all local authority areas.
	As it is promoted by the Family Rights Group, will the Government encourage the dissemination of good practice which already exists and assist in ensuring that family group conferencing becomes a norm, rather than the exception, in the making of care decisions for young people?

The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: My Lords, I share the House's real appreciation of the noble Earl for giving us the opportunity to debate these issues. His commitment to children and young people who live with great vulnerabilities and distress is widely respected and enriches this House.
	To pick up on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, we need to remind ourselves that one of the vocations of human life which I suspect we are in danger of persistently underplaying and undervaluing is parenting. It is the bedrock of a decent human society and a means of stability and humanity for all household members. We must say that children have a right to good, responsible parental oversight and love. The danger in debating an issue such as this is that in dealing with vulnerable and needy children and young people, we can go for second best and forget that they have a right to the best like everybody else.
	Making sure that parents have the emotional and material resources to fulfil their responsibilities in the complexities of today's society is one of our most important collective responsibilities. Together, we need to go on working for a culture that values and underscores the role of parents. Reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography reminds us that in some societies which are materially quite pressed, there are cultures of family support and community networking which work extremely well for children in need. We too, in our own history and society, have important traditions that surround wider family members: grandparents, uncles, aunts, neighbours and community members. Where these structures are strong, we have a climate in which it is possible to begin tackling some of the issues.
	Today, as noble Lords will be aware, is Ash Wednesday, when some of us are reminded of the fault line that runs through human life. We all fail. We mess up and get caught in a vortex of destructive behaviour. That happens to families as well as to political society. As in politics, so it is in families: the victims of such experiences are always the weak, the poor and those least able to protect themselves. In families, children especially become victims.
	When parenting fails it may be under the weight of addiction, a history of abuse and violence—as we have heard—or mental health issues and family breakdown, plus the sheer lack that so many have of any model of good parenting. When children are the victims, society is bound to come to their rescue. So social services and local authorities have some of the most difficult decisions to make, which have a moral and ethical basis when dealing with the question of whether to take a child into care. If we are weak on parenting in our society, I support the noble Earl's comments that we are particularly weak in the adequacy of structures and provision for care.
	My wife is a social worker who has spent all her professional life in family and children's work. So in a sense I have, for many years, literally slept with some of the issues. In recent years we have reduced the length of social work training. The noble Earl raised questions about the training of people in residential care. Bishops meet with a variety of local authorities around the country and it is quite clear that, in some, social services are a Cinderella service. There is a lack of clarity in many places about the structure, purpose and order of social services. Some parts of children's services are put with education while others are put with health. What structures are we working with? Where are the clarities now, since the Seebohm report and all that followed it? No doubt we are in a different world and need something else, but there is a lack of clarity about the structure.
	So the stories develop about children in care having a succession of social workers with little sense of a coherent strategy for helping that child, or group of children, on to a clear, determined end. Often, able and dedicated workers are working with poor structures, poor resources, inadequate management and a drifting political and public environment. It is important to say that local authorities cannot take on the parental role. So when they act in a crisis it is surely to begin to unwind the knotted problems that surround a child in such a condition, and to work to a strategy of helping to recover their life in a decent environment.
	We are in danger of our society drifting into a return to institutionalising people. It is good to hear that the number of children in institutions is as low as 6,000—that was, I think, the figure given. Yet the number of people in prison is going up and the number of children and young people held in secure units has gone up. Is that a way of dealing with their needs? The Churches and faith communities have a long and honourable history of working in this field. We have Barnardo's, NCH and the Children's Society. Dioceses had, in the past, a long run of adopting and fostering agencies—so much of the work has been rooted in institutions with clear ethical values and commitment.
	In Essex today, with over 1,000 children in care, the Churches are forming a partnership with public authorities, to see if we can find a new, wider generation of people to become foster parents. Much good can be done to distressed young people and children by really good foster homes that give some sense of stability to children at these points of transition. Not only must we press for more fostering opportunities and for families to consider taking on hard-to-place children. We must support them with good emotional and material resources. This is where partnerships between public authorities and voluntary or community-based agencies become really profitable.
	If we are to tackle these children's needs, we need a clear commitment in our society to up our valuing of parenting and family life. We need a clarity of purpose, structure and support for the professionals who have to make these tough decisions. We need better training and resourcing. We need more people involved in providing help and support.
	Children in care do not win votes, so the subject of our debate is an issue which tests the moral credibility of our politics. It is therefore good that the House has an opportunity today to consider these needs—and to see what we can do to help the lives of so many blighted children.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the consistent and determined way in which my noble friend Lord Listowel has drawn the Government's attention to the plight of looked-after children. All of us, especially the children concerned, owe him a very great debt.
	The other group to which I should like to pay tribute for its concerted efforts on behalf of looked-after children—indeed, of all children—is the consortium of children's charitable organisations. Some have been responsible for the recent manifesto for children, which contains important press evidence of the problems of these children. The statistics make dismal reading, with 6,000 or so—I thought the number was higher—remaining in children's homes rather than being fostered.
	The reasons for entering care in the first place are, inevitably, disturbing. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford has outlined them so I shall not repeat them. However, a particular concern is that ethnic minority groups are over-represented, with one in five looked after compared with one in 10 in the population as a whole.
	Sadly, as we all know, the state as parent has not helped the majority of these children's prospects through the education system. Thirty per cent suffer from school bullying. Crucially, only 9 per cent achieve five GCSEs at grade C or above, compared with 53 per cent of all other children—a quite massive gap. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that no more than 1 per cent go on to university, compared with 35 per cent of their peers.
	A major contribution to these dismal education figures is, of course, the multiple moves that such children experience. In 2003, just under 30 per cent were based outside the area of their original placing authority. As the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, commented last week at the launch of the children's manifesto, if children are constantly moved around, changing schools and foster placements, they cannot have the continuity of education or the stability in their emotional life that is so essential.
	With the sheer waste of human potential that this represents, added to the financial cost of residential placement, at around £1,840 per child per week, it is clear that a completely different approach is needed. If one adds to that the yearly cost of a prison place—I shall not expand on that, but we know that no less than one-quarter of the entire prison population has previously been in care—the case becomes overwhelming. Far more emphasis, therefore, is needed on prevention, early support and intervention for families at risk.
	As someone who was chairman of an inner London juvenile court for some 20 years, I am sad indeed to see how little, if at all, the situation and prospects for these children have improved. We tried, above all, as I am sure magistrates do today, to keep children within their community and provide support for their families if humanly possible. But when violent sexual abuse or complete family breakdown occurred, taking some children into care was inevitable.
	Ever since it became apparent, some time after I had left the juvenile Bench, that we had often been sending already physically and sexually abused and disturbed children to be further sexually abused in these homes, I—and, I am sure, many of my fellow magistrates at the time—have felt a very real sense of responsibility for what happened to those children. I am not, of course, suggesting that this necessarily continues in today's children's homes, although in People Like Us, bullying and physical abuse were both clearly identified as the biggest danger. However, I am suggesting that if we are clearly continuing to fail these children, now is the time for a radical rethink of all policies.
	The time is most obviously ripe because the Government have accepted the clear evidence of the failure that exists and are determined to change things. The co-ordination of all children's social, educational and other services—set out in the Children Act 2004 and being reinforced in the Education Bill currently before your Lordships' House—will help considerably. Rights being enshrined under the Disability Discrimination Bill will also significantly buttress the situation of children with physical, mental health and special educational needs issues.
	There are still a number of specific questions that I hope the Minister will address. First, given the priorities of different local authorities, what strategy do the Government have for preventing, or at least greatly reducing, the frequency with which children are moved from one care facility to another?
	Secondly, there is a considerable shortage of foster carers—10,000, I believe. They currently house more than two-thirds of looked-after children, doing so at about one-sixth of the cost of residential care. Does the Minister accept that one reason for this shortage might be the concern felt by some foster carers that they are not given enough resources or enough basic information about the child fostered to do this important and difficult job successfully? To put it crudely, they also feel rather patronised by the professionals with whom they are meant to be in partnership. Whether the Minister agrees with that or not, does he think that enough effort is being put into recruiting, training and paying foster parents adequately for the valuable role they undertake for the whole community? Is enough use being made of older would-be foster carers, including members of the child's family, who, with some extra help and resources, could take on this responsibility?
	My third question is about the slippery slope of school truancy. There is, alas, a high truancy rate among looked-after children. So I was somewhat surprised to see the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, to the Written Question of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, on 31 January, when he asked what percentage of pupils truanting the Government estimate to be involved in some form of criminal activity. Although quoting a MORI poll which showed that 45 per cent of those at school who admitted an offence said they had played truant, the Minister concluded that there was,
	"no conclusive evidence about which comes first, truancy or offending".—[Official Report, 31/1/05; col. WA 15.]
	That is directly in conflict with my experience. During a total of 24 years sitting in a juvenile court, dealing with children brought to court for committing a criminal offence, I found that these children had a long-standing truancy record in at least three out of every four cases. One quite effective use we made of the court's powers was to postpone any sentence to see whether school attendance could be resumed if it was not too far down the broken attendance path.
	If there really is no conclusive evidence on such a link, has not the time come for some really authoritative academic research, not least because of the considerable relevance of this subject to looked-after children?
	Finally, a most important need for looked-after children, especially those without contact with their own families, is to have a friend outside the system who can act on their behalf. This point has been emphasised by my noble friend Lord Listowel. There is, at least, in the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the right for a child leaving care who wishes to make a complaint to have an independent advocate. But surely more is needed, such as a friend throughout the period.
	Above all, is the Minister convinced that enough support, both practical and financial, is given to help care leavers throughout that very testing transitional period from care to full independence? The results from those children lucky enough to have been in the care of Shaftesbury Homes—a best practice case study if ever there was one—once again point to far better outcomes for all concerned if sufficient resources are spent at that point.
	Like the rest of your Lordships, I shall look forward eagerly to what the Minister has to say. In the mean time, once again I congratulate my noble friend Lord Listowel on securing this debate and on all he does for looked-after children.

Lord Dearing: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Listowel must feel weighed down by the compliments and gratitude. May I add to his burdens? I admire the way that he leads us again and again to the issue of looked-after children. Last Wednesday we were talking about parenting. When we talk about cared-for children, we are concerned with parenting in particular. As the Government have said in their White Papers, parenting is fundamental to children's prospects.
	I want to concentrate on foster carers because that is where two-thirds of children who are looked after find themselves. I thought I would inform myself about those people. Thanks to my noble friend Lord Listowel we had some help in obtaining information from the Fostering Network, the Frank Buttle Trust and Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa. But when I came to look for detailed, authoritative research about foster carers I did not find it. If there is to be a sound basis for government policy, there must be an evidential research base for it. When children have so much at stake It is so important that such information is available.
	Last Wednesday I gently raised the issue of research-based policy, and I find myself doing it again tonight. Perhaps I am inhibiting myself by expressing unresearched views—maybe I shall be slightly tempted to do wrong. From what we have been able to learn, a high percentage of foster parents are less well-off, less well-heeled members of our society, perhaps with less advantageous educational backgrounds and achievements than is normal; and, going with that, less advantageous homes and environments in which children can develop and be encouraged with learning.
	We all know the sadly close correlation between the social class background of parents and the achievement of children. If that information about foster parents, their backgrounds and circumstances is right, the inescapable conclusion is that unless they are greatly assisted the educational outcomes for children in their care will be disappointing.
	My noble friend Lady Howe quoted some figures; I shall give another dimension. We talk of the 50 per cent of average children who achieve A-star to C passes in GCSE. The normal statistic quoted in the Government's statistical bulletin on education for looked-after children is not the number of A to C passes they achieve, but the percentage who achieve one pass at A to G. The percentage for that is less than the 50 per cent for those who achieve five A to Cs. What a comparison: it is devastating.
	Some looked-after children do achieve five A to C passes—all credit to them. My noble friend Lady Howe quoted nine; I had seen a figure of six. But it is of that order compared with the 50 per cent. The immediate conclusion, even if it is not research based, is that those foster parents need a great deal of help to serve those children well. I have no doubt about their dedication, but they are serving the most disadvantaged, difficult-to-help children in the land.
	What about the allowances; the financial support they receive? Again, there is not a research base of information. I am delighted that the Government are going to instigate such research and, in the light of that, I hope that they will make regulations about minimum levels of financial grants to foster carers.
	The information available to me, such as it is, is that, typically, to assist in meeting the costs the range of assistance is between £100 and £200. It can be as low as £50. That is not big money. My noble friend Lady Howe said that it costs £1,800 per week to keep a child in a care home. I do not begrudge that, but let us make the comparison.
	Of course there can be money by way of a modest salary to foster carers, but I am told in what I read that half of them do not receive anything, so the financial provision is patchy. I am also told that there can be a difference of £100 per week in the payments made by neighbouring authorities. Come on; if we are going to help foster parents—who are the key to these children's futures—we must do better than that. The Government are right to embark on a research-based policy and then to take action.
	The children can also be helped at school. I hope that I recall correctly what Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa told us: that their present one well-qualified teacher was dedicating himself to helping seven of the children in school, to support them. That is real tutoring, but what about the foster parents' kids: do they receive it? They need it. Those children need extra support because they have extra need. I know that the Government care about this and I hope that they will bend their minds to it as a major issue of conscience facing us all.
	It was suggested to me that I might say a little about higher education. I refer to the 1 per cent of looked-after children who make it to higher education, as my noble friend Lady Howe quoted. I tried to find out a little more than I already knew about the golden 1 per cent. I read the first report by the Frank Buttle Trust published after the first year of its research on the children. It said,
	"going to university from a care background is a courageous decision".
	Two academics, Sarah Ajayi and Sonia Jackson, who worked for the Frank Buttle Trust, wrote in another document:
	"Previous research found they often have to overcome low expectations and discouragement from social workers, a severe shortage of information and advice, and acute financial problems".
	They start with great handicaps and they move, if they can with a high dose of courage to face financial uncertainty. They go to university without parental support. They feel scared, like strangers, and lonely.
	They have to worry about getting the money to go for interviews at universities and for overnight accommodation. They have to worry about the deposit that a landlord may require before they let them into accommodation, which is normal. Then there is the worry about managing the budget and facing the complexity of all the government systems for financial support for students—for which I have been responsible in my time—and tuition fees.
	The Frank Buttle Trust did some research and came forward with some recommendations about helping children with accommodation—for example, giving them priority for accommodation in university hostels, so that they can socialise and have access to the university's facilities. They cannot afford a computer themselves. The physical advantage and financial support are obvious aspects of that recommendation. There are some examples of good practice, which the Frank Buttle report cites, such as bursaries in Manchester and help with deposits in Kingston. Hampshire County Council, working with its local universities, has established contacts to assist students—and there are other examples. But when the Frank Buttle inquiry was first made, of the 96 universities that were approached only a minority were aware of looked-after children as a special category needing assistance. There is work to be done.
	I understand that Sir Martin Harris, the chairman of OFFA, a body that is concerned with access to universities—and perhaps the Minister, too—will be taking part in the launch of the report on the longitudinal Frank Buttle study. I hope that OFFA will feel, in the light of that, that it has a special responsibility to share with all universities the recommendations on good practice that come out of the study. I hope, too, that the Government play close attention to research funded by the Higher Education Funding Council on good practice and disseminate that information to local authorities.
	My final suggestion is that, because access to information is so difficult, consideration be given to setting up a well supported, well maintained website on which looked-after children can have easy access to the kind of information that they need about the mysteries of finance, whether government or local authority, and how to deal with the UCCA application form, which is difficult, as well as local information about accommodation. I am sure that that would be a great help, whether it was done through the Higher Education Funding Council, UCCA or the department itself.
	To return to the place where I started, let us look at the parenting. The foster parents are the key to the future of these children.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for introducing this debate.
	Most children taken into care have been emotionally damaged already in their early life, so we cannot blame local authorities or foster parents for the problems that they have when they come out the other end of the sausage machine. I suggest that we need to define what we are trying to do for those children. Are we trying to give them the therapeutic care that they need to solve all the emotional, social and other problems that they have collected in their early years? Are we trying to find, at the other end of the scale, simply a parking place—somewhere they can live in safety until they get to an age when they can live independently? Are we trying to return them to their families and, if so, with what objective?
	I ask the Minister whether, as part of the research project that I understood from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, he has in mind, he would consider looking realistically at the financial burden of doing what all noble Lords around the House have discussed, proposed and recommended, as well as all the other things that the officials and experts know need to be done. At the moment, it is a bit like my family's holiday budget, with people saying, "Maybe we could spend a little bit more on that, but let's forget about the other thing because although we'll obviously have to pay for it in the end, it would make the total too big now". We want to get a realistic, honest picture of the cost, which I suspect would be about double what we are spending at the moment on those children. I suspect that it might amount to about £4 billion, but it might be only £3 billion. After that, we can face up to whether we want to go ahead with those plans, or not—and, if not, whether there may be cheaper ways in which to reduce the number of children who need extreme remedial care.
	At the moment, we are not doing it properly, and we are relying on the generosity of a lot of people who provide their services as fosterers and in other ways at their own expense. But there is another constraint. Even supposing we had the money, children's services today are terribly overstretched. They are failing to guarantee the safety of all the nation's children and they do not have the capacity to secure for those children the love and care that they need. The reason is that there is a serious shortage of people, which shows not only in the staffing levels in local authority care, residential and social work, but in the hiring of unqualified staff for residential care and the lack of training. Providers simply do not have enough staff cover to send staff away on courses. I know from the experience of the Caldecott Community that that is a real problem.
	Residential children's services in general have to deal with children who have very complex, demanding problems, often because other services have failed them. So they need the best staff, top quality training, expert management, sufficient resources and right values, attitudes and motivation if they are really going to work. Those things ought to be built into a budget and then, if we cannot afford them, let us face it and see what else we can do—or else, let us grit our teeth and jolly well afford them, but let us not kid ourselves.
	I shall merely touch on fostering because the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and others have already dealt with it fully. One of the great problems is the chopping and changing of placements, which is partly if not wholly due to the shortage of appropriate foster carers. It is one of the worst features of the system because almost all children who come into care have suffered from a deficit of loving attachment to adults they can trust and with whom they can hope to continue to have a firm attachment. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to family group conferences, which are of great importance. The Family Rights Group is doing good work on that.
	Does not everything that I have said suggest that there may be a place for lateral thinking? I refer to the Frank Buttle Trust, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Listowel, which suggested the possibility of a part-time arrangement for fostering. If we want more fosterers, we have to change the bowling a bit and make it in some way an easier, better and more attractive job. One thought was to take some of the stress and strain out of being a foster carer by having the young people board weekly at school. Such an arrangement would take a lot of the stress out of the workload of foster carers. They would have perhaps every other weekend to look after the children, and in the holidays. As my noble friend Lady Howe said, that might make it easier for family members to take on the job of fostering, whereas they cannot quite see their way to doing it at the moment. It would be much easier for grandparents and older people to come into the ring of foster carers.
	Your Lordships may look askance at the idea of boarding schools being brought into this matter, but many boarding schools either are, or would prefer to be, non-elitist, if only they had a way to cover their costs. I have had good experience of both state boarding schools—one called Bowden House in Eastbourne—and of boarding schools in the private sector that have taken children from modest home environments. The children have made very good progress in weekly boarding. Somehow the framework of an orderly community during the week with lots of sporting and other activities, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, particularly suits boys. Such activities often enable them to find themselves and to thrive.
	The real solution is to reduce the number of children in care. I shall not spend too long on this, but improving the attractiveness of adoption is one of the most obvious ways to do that. The other way is to catch parents earlier so that problems do not arise. Nearly all mothers and the vast majority of fathers want to be good parents. They want to do the best they can for their child. In varying degrees all parents today need help.
	In that context, I shall quote from a client of Parentline Plus who says:
	"I feel totally exhausted. My toddler never stops and I feel so alone. I was in care and now I am bringing up the kid on my own. I just don't know how to be a good mum and there is no one here to help me".
	I shall conclude by giving an example of a scheme which is now becoming widespread in the United States and which I encountered recently in Florida. It has potential here. In Key West, all women who are pregnant with their first child are given the opportunity to opt for a screening to identify whether they qualify for help after their baby is born. Help is free or heavily subsidised and takes the form of a home visiting programme by a trained mentor for up to five years, starting with visits once a week, then once a fortnight and then once a month. The help is carefully structured and the child's progress is monitored. I heard only yesterday that a hospital in Nottingham is experimenting with this idea.
	Will the Minister consider having his officials look into the matter to see whether there is a case for a similar scheme in this country? It could have an early pay-off. It is not like so many projects when we say, "Well, the money will come back when the children are not in gaol 15 years later". If we look after young parents, we shall save children going into care perhaps only one, two or three years later. In this Budget period, even the Chancellor of the Exchequer might not think that a bad idea.
	My time is up, but I want to say simply that we we must look at prevention, prevention, prevention.

Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I am no childcare expert and my direct experience of residential care settings and fostering is with frail older people. However, in discussion with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, before Christmas, we talked about the great similarities in the inadequacies of training and difficulties of supporting the staff in residential care settings at both ends of the age spectrum. Two highly disadvanted needy groups of people are cared for by some of the worst paid and least adequately trained staff.
	While digging around an area with which I am familiar, such as mental health problems, I was shocked by the facts and figures in the Government's own publications on mental health problems of looked-after children. I am grateful to the noble Earl for raising the debate if only because, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, it has stimulated my interest in an area of which I was quite ignorant. I have listened with great interest to the contributions so far and have learned a great deal, so I look forward to the rest of the debate.
	I shall confine my remarks to the issues surrounding the mental health of those children and what we might do about them. I am especially grateful to my friend Professor Philip Graham, formerly the Dean of the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, and to Dr Stephen Scott at the Institute of Psychiatry for sharing their wisdom on these matters.
	Last year's survey by the Office for National Statistics assessed that 45 per cent of children who were looked after by local authorities had a significant mental disorder. That compares with about 8 per cent of children overall. Of those between the ages of 11 and 17 who are in residential care rather than fostered, no less than 68 per cent were mentally disordered in some way, mainly from conduct disorders, emotional problems and hyperactivity. Eleven per cent had autism and there is very grave over-representation of psychosis and drug misuse. That adds up to an unbelievably vast amount of unhappiness and distress for those children.
	There has been surprisingly little research on those problems because of the difficulties of studying them. Problems arise because of frequent changes of placement, changes in social worker, poor school attendance, or mistrust by the children themselves. Health and social care services use different languages. While a social model of care is advocated if it excludes and stigmatises a clinical model and denies the possibility of a mental health diagnosis, affected children may be denied appropriate care. I shall come to something that tries to bridge that gap later. Data collection has been very poor, too, so we do not always know what we are dealing with.
	We do know that children are far more likely to have experienced the risk factors that predispose to mental disorder, which very often are the reasons why they have been taken into care. Physical abuse and neglect, family dysfunction, disability, parental illness or disability, acute stress and low income all precede the admission to care.
	Of course, there is a complex interaction between disturbed family relationships and anti-social behaviour. As we have already heard, the children are nearly all educationally disadvantaged and underachieving. The fact that staff are poorly trained to manage mental health problems means that matters often go from bad to worse as a direct result of poor practice in residential homes and bad fostering. That is not to say that I do not think that people are trying very hard. There are very many examples of good practice, but probably an insufficient number.
	From the point of view of the children and young people, I gather that some are clear that entering care was the best thing that could have happened to them at the time, and they have subsequently made new attachments and had positive experiences of family life. But far too many enter a vicious cycle of failed placements, poor school achievements and escalating anti-social behaviour.
	There have been about 40 published studies of a range of interventions to see whether we can improve the foster care experiences of those most challenging young people, however difficult the research is. The most promising has been the multidimensional treatment foster care, which was devised by Chamberlain and his colleagues at the Oregon Social Learning Centre.
	In the UK, Palett, Scott and their colleagues were sufficiently impressed to conduct an early pilot study, and are now involved in replicating the treatment foster care model in England. I understand that the Department for Education and Skills is commissioning 21 pilot centres across England between 2002 and 2006. Nine are currently funded and more are coming on stream. The programme is being evaluated nationally and co-ordinated by teams at the Maudsley Hospital and Booth Hall children's hospital in Manchester.
	I do not have time to describe in detail what the programme consists of, but crucially it involves foster carers becoming the core part of the multidisciplinary team. At the heart is a social learning model, which both health and social services and education staff can relate to easily. That is a crucial part of it. It requires intensive supervision and is demanding of social and clinical staff, but the approach is very promising. It is neither a social nor a clinical model but both.
	To develop and evaluate a high quality, evidence based programme across the country is going to be difficult and, let us admit, costly. Other speakers have said that we need more money for these children. Current provision does not have the capacity to respond to the challenge. But what is the alternative—further investment in secure homes run by the private sector at a phenomenal cost to local authorities and producing unprecedented profits for investors? Other speakers were struck by Polly Toynbee's article in the Guardian of 28 January which pointed out the dangers of such a system and the profits to be made by entrepreneurs in a system that is largely about containment. It gets the kids out of sight and out of mind, until, that is, the trail of human wastage fetches up in our prisons, medium secure units and special hospitals, beginning the vicious cycle for a new generation. Local authorities spend fabulous sums on care that contains when they might spend more on care that cures and protects.
	One very practical and simple step might be taken. I have listened to young people talking about what happens when they leave care. Even when they are linked to child and adolescent mental health services, it is clear that often when they leave care there is no appropriate transition to adult services, and that they fall down the trench between the two systems. We could at least demand that there is some kind of agreed protocol in all local mental health services regarding the transfer of these children to appropriate support as they make the transition to adult life.
	I want to end on a note of optimism. We should applaud the initiative of the Department for Education and Skills on treatment foster care, wish it well and hope for a positive evaluation and a rapid expansion nationwide. We can do something to diminish the pain of these children's lives, and we need to use the evidence we already have to get on and do it.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, I join in the thanks that have been offered from all quarters to my noble friend Lord Listowel. He is right to keep drawing our attention to the needs of this particularly vulnerable group of people. I am glad to say that his remarks are strongly echoed throughout the Cross Benches.
	I would like to concentrate on the two-thirds of all children in public care who are looked after by foster parents. On any one day up to 50,000 children are living with foster families. The majority of those children go back to their natural families within a year, though some stay much longer. The Fostering Network estimates that 10,000 more foster homes are needed. These would ensure that children do not have to be placed far away from their relations, friends and existing schools. The current shortage means that temporary placements may have to be used before a really suitable home can be found for a given child. Here I echo what my noble friend Lady Howe said.
	Last October I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, about the importance of stable fosterings and the need to find more good quality foster parents. I would like to thank him for his full reply of 11 November 2004. After the Green Paper, Every Child Matters, it is clear that the Government grasp the importance of improving foster care so that the child's interests are always upheld. I welcome the extra £30 million in this financial year to help local authorities to strengthen and expand their fostering. It is good that foster carers are now protected for state pensions while they work for other people's children. I understand that the national advice line and the award scheme should both be in place by the end of next month. However, when will the Government issue guidance on the best ways of planning and commissioning services for children in care?
	Good will and good guidance do not solve all problems, particularly money worries. Such worries arise in three main areas: allowances; fees; and the cost of training. Foster parents receive allowances that are supposed to cover all the extra costs that they incur as a result of taking in children. The direct costs are obvious but there are often extra ones for record keeping, attending courts and meetings, keeping up contact between children and their own families or helping with assessments and inspections. The Fostering Network publishes recommended minimum allowances, updated annually. Yet over half of all local authorities pay their foster parents less than the recommended rate. In my region two authorities are close to the recommended level but Somerset and Gloucestershire are substantially below it. A recent survey found that six out of 10 foster carers said that the allowances failed to cover their necessary expenses. This is a serious situation since it must be wrong to exploit commitment and good will to these particularly vulnerable children.
	I mention fees first because it is important to pay a worthwhile retaining fee to foster parents during gaps between placements of children with them. It is most desirable that fees should also be paid in recognition of the time and effort that foster parents devote to their charges. Where the children have learning difficulties or behaviour problems, and sometimes both, high levels of skill and care are required. Nevertheless, the majority of long-term foster parents receive no fees. When they are paid, their rate of pay is usually less than that of residential care workers, which does not allow for saving towards a private pension.
	Training is the third cost factor. Ideally, foster parents should receive this before acceptance, on starting work and for in-service development. The result of low allowances and fees and lack of training is that quite a number of foster parents leave the service or go to work for independent fostering agencies. These agencies almost always pay more than local authorities and incorporate a wage element. They often provide better support and training for their foster parents. Some parents have moved to the agencies for that reason rather than just for better money.
	I am sure your Lordships will agree that the care and fostering of children cannot sensibly be done on the cheap. Here I agree with my noble friend Lord Northbourne. The cost is an investment in the future not only for the children in question but for society generally. This extra investment is likely to be recouped through savings in criminal justice later on. I agree that this may take some years but I think the savings will be very considerable.
	Have the Government studied the Manifesto for Change published by the Fostering Network last December? Do they agree with its conclusions? Will they ensure, as far as possible, that local authorities and independent fostering agencies work together and not as rivals? Will they take steps to help collaboration and to identify best practice and spread it across the country? Best practice is what children who have suffered ill treatment and neglect so urgently need. I am sure that your Lordships and the Government are deeply concerned about teenagers on remand, young pregnant mothers and children with serious bad behaviour. These are some of the problems that fostering can help.
	In conclusion, I ask the Government to try to give this whole subject much greater priority than it has had in the past. Can they today give us some good news on current progress?

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on introducing this important debate and on turning our attention constantly to these needy children. It has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate. That makes winding up extremely challenging for the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and me since we have less time in which to do so than the other speakers. However, I shall do my best.
	It does not take long for the damage done by the inadequacies of the care system to show itself. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, emphasised the link between those who have been in care and those involved with the criminal justice system, possibly even in custody, and the link with young women who have an unwanted teenage pregnancy. He also spoke of the cycle of care where people who have been in care do not know how to parent; and their children in turn find themselves in the care system.
	Sadly, the number of looked-after children has increased. In Wales from 2002 to 2003 the number increased by 9 per cent, and increased again last year. Overall in the UK there was a 1 per cent increase last year. That figure does not seem great but it represents a large number of children whose lives are in great difficulty.
	The only way in which we can halt that increase is by giving more support to parents to keep their children with them. All noble Lords agree that the best place for most children is with their parents—unless there has been serious abuse. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, the noble Lords, Lord Dearing and Lord Northbourne, and others have spoken of the importance of support for parents. But it must be universal support, available to all parents. That is the only way to avoid the stigma which sometimes goes with taking up those services. We must remember that family difficulties are not restricted to those who live in deprived circumstances.
	Many noble Lords spoke of the majority of children in care with foster parents. Since I came to this House I have heard a number of presentations from fostered children and foster carers and some wonderful tributes to foster parents by children who had their lives turned round by wonderful foster parents. However, noble Lords have drawn attention to three major issues. First, on fees and allowances to foster carers, although improvements were made by the Children Act 2004, more needs to be done. We all know that people do not become carers for the money. What we do not know is the number of potential foster parents who have been put off even from inquiring about foster caring because they know that they will not be able to afford to do so because sometimes such caring costs more than the allowances they receive.
	Secondly, a number of noble Lords mentioned the importance of training for foster carers as well as those working in children's homes. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, about an important pilot scheme for treatment fostering, with additional support and specialist training and services available for the most difficult children.
	The third issue is the need for more networking and support opportunities for foster parents to interact with and learn from each other about strategies which will help them and support them emotionally in undertaking the care of these sometimes very difficult children.
	Shortcomings in all those areas mean that there are shortages of foster parents in some areas. That means that children are often moved from one placement to another. The average placement in Wales is for only 286 days; and 11 per cent of children last year were in more than three placements. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, put it, that is chopping and changing and one cannot do that with children. They must sometimes feel more like a parcel than a human being.
	Those children cost a lost of money but is the money well spent? I understand that those in children's homes cost £95,784 a year which is four times the cost of sending them to Eton. Yet, the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, emphasised the low level of training and pay of workers in such institutions. One has to wonder where the money is going. Some is going into profits for private enterprise.
	Even the average budget of over £25,500 for looked-after children is more than the cost of sending a child to Eton. I was most interested in the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, about weekly boarding, with foster parents looking after the children at weekends and holidays. I am sure he is right: that family members may be able to cope with that situation where they could not cope full time.
	One has only to look at the difference in educational attainment between children at independent schools and children in care. Eighty per cent of pupils in independent schools attain more than five GCSE grades A to C and less than 10 per cent of children in care gain those. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, mentioned that 43 per cent of looked-after children leave care with only one GCSE or GNVQ compared with the national average of 95.8 per cent of children achieving at least that. That means that 57 per cent had nothing—even less than one GCSE—so what possible chance in life do they have?
	Fortunately, NGOs—some have been mentioned today—such as Centrepoint, to whom I spoke earlier this week, pick up some of these children. They give them a home after they have left care and an opportunity to rescue their education or to go into further or higher education. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, how difficult it is for these children to go into higher education.
	My noble friend Lady Barker talked about the health of children in care. I understand that about 44 per cent have high levels of mental and emotional disorder but their needs often go unnoticed. Twenty-seven per cent of them have statements of special educational needs compared with only 3 per cent of the general population. They are four times more likely to smoke, drink or take drugs. Routine healthcare such as dentistry is less good than that of the general population. We cannot undo the damage done by the trauma many have experienced before going into care but we should be able to mitigate the effects. The least we can do is to fulfil the healthcare parts of their care plan for all of the children, not just half of them.
	To guide us in this area, we need to look at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 20 states that a child deprived of his family environment should be entitled to special protection and assistance and have due regard paid to the desirability for continuity in his circumstances. Unfortunately, although we spend a lot of money it does not always result in special protection and certainly not in continuity. Many speakers have emphasised the importance of continuity. We need to base our policies firmly and transparently on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I am sure the new Children's Commissioner will do a great deal to promote the rights of children in that respect even though his brief is not as firmly based on the convention as some of us would have wished. Do children in the care system really feel looked-after—or are they just coped with or, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, put in a "parking place"? What a sad expression but how true.
	The eight areas which need particular attention include opportunities to make friends, support and training for carers, stable long-term funding, investment in emotional and mental health services, safe and appropriate housing for care leavers, improved systems for maintaining continuity in services, greater consultation and involvement for the children—whether in family group conferencing to avoid a child going into care or afterwards—about the details of their care, and, finally, education.
	I wish to address the first area. Children in care lose their friends because they usually have to move away and go to a different school. Often they move frequently. Children's well-being depends greatly on their friends. I well remember crying piteously when I had had a falling-out with my best friend and the sense of isolation when she was not speaking to me. Imagine how much worse that must be for a looked-after child who already feels alone in the world.
	Also, they often feel somehow apart from other children at the school who go home at night to their families. I was discussing the subject the other day with a friend of mind who said that he well remembered that, when he was a little boy at school, there was a group of boys who always stood apart in the playground. They did not play with other children. He said: "We felt that they were somehow different and clearly they did too". One of the state's aims for looked-after children, for whom the state is a corporate parent, must surely be to give them the continuity and quality of care that means that they will no longer feel somehow apart and different.

Earl Howe: My Lords, I very much associate myself with other noble Lords who have congratulated the noble Earl on introducing this immensely important topic for debate. We all appreciate the authoritative way in which he introduced it, for we know how strongly he has championed the cause of looked-after children in your Lordships' House for a good number of years. I have listened with great care to all the contributions to the debate and I am sure that the Minister, with his acknowledged commitment to this policy area, will be keen to respond to all of them in his normal constructive and sympathetic way.
	The breadth and depth of the problems faced by looked-after children have been well covered: the lack of educational attainment and the likelihood of unemployment, criminal behaviour, homelessness and single parenthood. One thing that I cannot accuse the Government of is turning a blind eye to those matters. Indeed, since they took office, we have seen a series of worthy measures designed to promote the life chances of children in care, not the least of which was the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, the far-reaching 2003 report of the Social Exclusion Unit and, most recently, the Children Act 2004.
	The issue for us today is to get beyond the statutes and official reports and consider what needs to happen on the ground. If you talk to those who work in local authorities and to organisations such as the British Association for Adoption and Fostering or the Fostering Network, a pretty consistent picture emerges about the shortcomings of the system. We need more people willing to foster—probably about 10,000 more. The fewer fosterers we have, the more we have to resort to children's homes and the worse the outcomes for the children are likely to be.
	We need to minimise the number of times that a looked-after child is moved. The more you move a child, the more likely it is that he will go on to develop one of the classic problems of state care, attachment disorder, which leads not only to the child's inability to establish trusting relationships, whether at home or at school, but to low self-esteem and a disengagement from studies and homework. So the downward spiral begins.
	Yet, typically, a child in government care gets moved about 10 times, often as many as 40 times. Some infants under 12 months old have been found to have been moved four times in the first year. What is even worse, an estimated 16 per cent of such moves are done not for welfare reasons but for reasons of administrative convenience.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, is right. Potential foster parents need to feel valued. One way to do that is to offer them proper training. Another, as several noble Lords have said, is to recognise the financial burden that they carry by paying them a reasonable allowance. Half of foster parents are still unpaid and two-thirds receive an allowance that does not cover their out-of-pocket costs.
	There is still little support for those fostering difficult children and what support there is varies widely in quality around the country. My noble friend Lord Hanningfield, who would have liked to have spoken in this debate, tells me exactly what the right reverend Prelate emphasised: in Essex, it is extremely difficult to find enough foster parents with the right calibre and age and money for training is very thin on the ground. There is good evidence that support for fosterers after a placement can be highly effective in preventing a breakdown of the fostering arrangement and promoting the child's educational attainment, a need to which the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, rightly drew our attention.
	At any one time, there are about 90,000 children in the care system. If we take out of the reckoning those who are looked after for short periods, we see some pronounced trends. Between 1994 and 2003, the number looked after on a longer-term basis rose by more than 20 per cent, with a marked increase in children under 12 months of age. If we then analyse the reasons underlying those figures, we see something equally serious. In 1994, 18 per cent of looked-after children were taken into care because of neglect and abuse. In 2003, the percentage was 62. That should ring alarm bells.
	My view is that no child should be taken into care unless there is an absolutely overwhelming case for it. There is some anecdotal evidence of over-zealousness on the part of social workers post Climbié, although that is clearly hard to substantiate. It is easier to verify the growth in the levels of drug and alcohol dependency among birth parents as the trigger for care orders.
	If one talks to organisations such as Parents for Children, whose chief executive came to speak to the All-Party Group on Adoption last week, it is easy to get depressed about the intractability of the whole issue. Two sorts of children present the greatest difficulties when it comes to foster care: those with severe physical and learning difficulties; and those who have suffered mental damage very early in their lives. In recent years, we have learnt that children with severe physical and learning disabilities are comparatively easy to help. The hardest to help are those who in their formative years have been severely maltreated.
	We know that when a baby is very young, the development of the brain, if it is to be normal, depends critically on day-by-day, if not moment-by-moment, interaction with the mother. The noble Earl was right to make that point. Brain development is a sequential process. If the mother neglects the child emotionally—that is to say, if she does not interact and engage with him as a normal mother does—the child's mental development is impaired not temporarily but permanently. Normal children, as they grow from babyhood, come to realise that other people have thoughts and feelings. Children who suffer emotional neglect grow up without that understanding.
	The implications of that finding are of course enormous. The statistics tell us that children who are placed in foster care or who are adopted when they are less than a year old tend to develop quite well. If they are not placed until they are 18 months or older, the damage is very hard, if not impossible, to heal because the child is neurobiologically disregulated. Behaviour is wayward and hyperactive and the child is uncommunicative and aggressive. No matter how well trained the foster carers are and how much preparation of the child is done, the outcome is exactly the same. Those are the findings from recent work by Farmer at the University of Bristol and Sinclair at the University of York. Even high quality one-to-one psychotherapy does not work if the child is over-active and unamenable to that kind of treatment. Such children simply do not to respond. As the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, rightly said there are a great many such children. Of young people looked after by local authorities, 45 per cent are assessed as having a mental disorder.
	However, before we get too depressed about that, there are some rays of hope. Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, mentioned one. Work done in the United States during the past 30 years at the Oregon Social Learning Centre has demonstrated the benefits of what is known as filial therapy, which involves training foster parents and carers in techniques using play. In simple terms, the play techniques tell you what is on the child's mind and it becomes possible to communicate. Good behaviour in the child is then reinforced by a system of rewards. That process in turn leads gradually to emotional attachment.
	I have to say that any adopter or foster parent who takes this on deserves a medal, because it is intensive stuff. It requires them to keep daily checklists on the child's behaviour; it involves strict control of the child's diet; and there are weekly support group meetings. But the results of the early intervention foster care scheme are impressive. There is a hormonal marker which distinguishes the levels of stress in normal children from those typically found in children who are fostered. After six months in the scheme, children develop more normal levels of the hormone. This results in a far lower incidence of disruption in foster placements and fewer disruptions upon return home to the biological parents. Indeed, children who are in the scheme and who move placement are as successful as foster children who do not undergo multiple moves. Even more significantly, children who receive filial therapy are far less liable to indulge in offending behaviour.
	If the Minister is interested, I commend to him in particular the work of Rise Van Fleet at York University, as well as the work done in Oregon which has recently been documented in the Journal of the American Psychological Association.
	In any debate of this kind it is useful to identify the manifestations of the problems associated with looked-after children and, as many noble Lords have done, to examine a range of remedial measures. Many of the measures devised by the Government—designated teachers in schools, personal education plans, a statutory duty for local authorities in the Children Act—will, I am sure, do good. The noble Earl spoke of the need for advocacy for looked-after children and training for care home staff. He is right. However, we also need to look behind the manifestations of the problem for the underlying causes.
	Families are breaking down. Forty-four per cent of cohabiting couples become single parents within the first four years of their child's life. Our goal should be to promote stability for children, not just when they reach the care system but before they ever get to it. Inadequate and ignorant parenting, drug and alcohol dependency among young adults, the lack of practical parenting advice for new parents—these, I suspect, are the areas that will most richly repay study and effort if we are to have any hope of reversing the dismal trends about which I and others have spoken.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I wish that I had 20 minutes to respond to perhaps one or two of you rather than all of you, because there is so much that needs to be said.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was right to start with the problems that children in care have had or demonstrate, because it illustrates the problem. They are eight times more likely to have serious special educational need problems; 10 times more likely to be permanently excluded; six times more likely to get poor GCSEs; three times more likely to offend; and, most significantly, perhaps as many as 45 per cent have mental health disorders as a consequence of what has happened to them early on. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, was right also to signal the increasing worry of drug and alcohol dependency in our society damaging children very seriously and making interventions more difficult.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in touching on the relationship between children in care and offending, raised an eyebrow at me in relation to a rather literal response that I gave. What I said was true: the research is not there. What is also true is that if a child is in school it is less likely to offend. Therefore, I do not think that we need more research; we need more efforts to get children into school. I hope that she will therefore take that in the spirit in which it is intended.
	Let me try to paint the picture a little wider. It is easy—I have been guilty of it myself—to have a view that children have a terrible crisis, go into care, stay there for 18 years or so, and then move on. That is not the case. There are 60,000 in care at any one time. There are 90,000 who will have been in care in a year but, most tellingly, nearly two thirds of children go out of care after less than two years in care. That is not to play with statistics, but to make the point that there are very many more children who have been in care and are now back with their family than are in care at any one point in time. Most of what we talk about are snapshots of those who are in care at the time. It can therefore give the impression that that is the problem—those in care. Unfortunately, the problem is bigger than that: it is those who have been in care but who are now back in—how shall one put it?—less-than-perfect circumstances, because the world has not been transformed.
	I make a second point. The line between who goes into care and who does not is not tightly defined. There are many children in poor, risky, damaged or damaging situations who do not go into care—it may be the right judgment—but who are equally at risk of poor outcomes. Therefore we are talking, not specifically and literally about those who are in care at any one point in time, but those who, because of what has happened to their nurturing and their environment, are at risk of having very poor outcomes in their life. So I am afraid that the problem and the set is bigger, and we should not just focus—although we must—on those who happen to be in care at a particular time.
	If I am right in that perspective, that emphasises two things. It emphasises prevention, but also the focus of the Every Child Matters agenda. The Every Child Matters agenda is seeking to look at the totality of children in a wide range of circumstances. It recognises that we have to focus on a wider group who are at risk, not just those who are literally in care at this minute. We have to look at a wider range of interventions. If services focus just on those in care and do not focus on those who have been in care but who are back with their family or who might be in care but have similar risk factors, we will completely miss the point of the problem. It is therefore a bigger challenge for local authorities and care services than simply good outcomes for those who are literally in care. That is the relevance of the Every Child Matters agenda, and I want to emphasise that.
	I agree strongly with the points about prevention. If we can prevent and get better outcomes without taking a child out of its home environment, we would be foolish not to. Again, it is relevant to Every Child Matters. I recollect that the 1963 Act had as one of its goals—which shows how long one has been around—preventing taking into care, if it was avoidable.
	I share the interest of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in family group conferencing. I have discussed it recently with the Family Rights Group. I want shortly to set up a round table with a range of experts, looking at alternative ways to prevent reception into care—not so that you can avoid the state doing things, but you can find better ways of the state intervening to help.
	The issues of mental health support and intervention for the mother and the child, which were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, are absolutely central. I will not go into detail, but you know what we are doing on CAMHS. We are trying to rebuild CAMHS very strongly and also the level of funding that is going into that. That will take a while to develop, though there is now a CAMHS worker in most local authorities, dedicated to children in care.
	I suggest that preventing more children coming into care will not solve those children's problems unless, at the same time, the services for those who do not formally go into care are also better at supporting them and their parents, in order to achieve better outcomes. We will not have cracked the problem just by not bringing them formally into care.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, spoke of the development of the social brain and its centrality to reflection on public policy at the present time. We talked about it again recently, and it was good to hear him say so. In our debate on parenting, I gave a clear signal that it was strongly on my agenda and also that of the Government. Serious questions are raised about what that new knowledge we have about the centrality of the social brain development says about how we support parents and how we protect children. Let me turn to education of looked-after children. You know as well as I do why it is crucial: if they do not get better educational outcomes, their life prospects are clearly written in the sand—or the propensity to do less well in life is clear.
	We have set a strong PSA target to narrow the gap in educational retention, building on the Social Exclusion Unit report. We have placed a new duty on all local authorities to promote educational achievement, and we have a detailed action plan to take that forward. Guidance is about to be issued, and it is firmly the focus of many local authorities as they prepare for implementation of the Children Act. We will legislate again on the Education Act in that respect. There will be a further measure on that, with which I shall thrill certain noble Lords when we come back to it in a couple of weeks' time.
	I shall touch briefly on some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, on access to higher education. I agreed with the broad thrust of his remarks; all children need support to go into higher education. We have good examples, as he indicated. I mention also Ealing, which managed to get 14 per cent of its care leavers into university compared to 1 per cent in others. There are good practices that show you can break the mould. Local authority support for the transition from 18 into adulthood and for people going to university is very important.
	I am not certain that we need a website; we have some at present. I agree that we must focus above all on raising the aspirations of those who support care leavers or children in care. They have as much right as anyone else to get into higher education, and if they are not doing so there is a failure in the system. I would love to join Sir Martin Harris's launch, if he invites me. He probably has and I have forgotten—no matter.
	The Social Exclusion Unit report signalled also the centrality of stability. It talked about stability in the context of educational attainment, and it was right to, because children constantly moving school, with the emotional disturbance that goes with that, are less likely to learn well, for obvious reasons. Stability is important for other reasons, as a range of speakers signalled. All of us know, from our own lives, about the emotional turbulence. If we constantly move a person who already has significant emotional damage as a product of being brought into care from one care situation to another, we are worsening the situation. Raising stability is a central policy goal. By and large, local authorities agree with us; the need is to ensure that something happens.
	A related issue is out-of-authority placements, which I was amazed were not mentioned. Someone mentioned that there was a high number of such placements. My apologies—the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, did mention it. I am sorry; I cannot remember every one. The figure of 30 per cent of placements out of authority is far higher than can be justified in the care decisions for the child. It is a product of crisis purchasing of placements for children and of failing to develop an adequate supply of foster parents and children's homes in the locality. It is the product of deciding that it is easier to place somebody elsewhere rather than having a tough debate locally about how to develop the services.
	The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, asked when we would issue the guidance on better commissioning to local authorities. We will do so in a couple of weeks. I am horrified that it requires government to give advice about better commissioning of such issues, because what should be done is self-evident, and good authorities do it already. I will do more than that, as I have a bee in my bonnet about it, as noble Lords can probably sense. I shall write a fairly brisk letter to local authorities setting out why we think that it is bad for children—the evidence says it—why it is often more expensive; why there are worse outcomes; and why it is more difficult for the local authority to provide the support that it is statutorily obliged to give a child or to intervene into the disturbances that often occur because of distant placements. So it will not do.
	We are determined to drive up the quality and skill of residential care staff. By happenstance this week I met David Behan, from the Commission for Social Care Inspection. We talked about his first year's experience of inspecting children's homes. He started the job in April. We talked about his perception of the quality of training and care. He will do some reflective work and come back to me shortly with his view about where between us we must put pressure on the system to improve it. I am tempted, as Ministers are, to jump to the first three or four things that strike me, but we want to put pressure where it is most likely to result in improvements. The quality of care, training and support will not do in some situations. One does not want to destroy the supply suddenly, but we wish to issue a clear warning that things must improve. I was delighted that David Behan was four-square with me on that discussion.
	None of that says that there is not a role for children's homes. Although we have seen an enormous contraction of children's homes over the past 20 or 30 years, there is a continuing, but focused, role for them. However, their role must add considerable value. Given the costs involved, as mentioned by noble Lords, one would expect to get more than a hotel function.
	Much has been said by many noble Lords on fostering. I agreed with an enormous amount of the remarks. With a shortage of 8,000 foster carers, there is a call for local authorities to think more imaginatively. The quality of support and training varies greatly. We have introduced a power in the Children Act 2004, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and others will recall, to prescribe minimum payments for foster carers. We have a working group with local government, ADSS and others to look at how we research that, understand what is happening now and identify how we work collectively to get better minimum payments across local authorities with a firm legislative stick in the cupboard, should we need to use it. We would be foolish to jump to that without having the thoughtful process that is under way already.
	We plan to commission a comprehensive assessment of the state of training. I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that we do not have a detailed analysis of the skills and experience of foster carers. Although, I suspect, we have a pretty good rough feel, we ought to have a better feel of it. We will build up a picture of the number of approved foster carers and their characteristics across the country and ensure that foster carers have the skills they need to do it. That data will then be fed into our children's workforce strategy, which I hope to sign off on Thursday night, prior to publication, before too long. Some of those issues will clearly feature in that, as well they should. We need to know more, but in some cases we also need to get on with it, because what we know is sometimes good enough for action rather than delay.
	I am delighted to hear what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, was saying about the work of the excellent leader of Essex County Council to improve the recruitment of foster parents. That seems good. I agree strongly with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that it is not just a matter of recruiting; you must support and involve fosterers as partners in the care process. They must feel valued. When you do that, they stay and are more likely to contribute to the care plan. Some of those points are blindingly obvious, but we must break some of the previous moulds of practice that left the foster parent outside the door when discussions were taking place about the child.
	There is a lot to be done. Obviously, the world has moved on from the historic model of the woman at home with nothing else to do, happy to take one more on because there was a bit of spare space and she had a big heart and a big kitchen. That is why we are experiencing some of the problems. I am not doing justice to all the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. When I met David Behan this week we talked also about foster parents.
	Having said all that, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and others are right to say that we should think about other patterns of care. I gave one hint when I was thinking about the early intervention work. In patterns of care itself rather than prevention, lateral thinking and a radical rethink are constantly required, when the present approach is so expensive, so difficult to sustain and not good enough.
	We should not pretend that it is easy stuff. It is not a situation of children who somehow, by some tragic accident, have lost both parents and are being cared for. In most cases, they are highly damaged children who have been on a merry-go-round of difficulties and disadvantage. We know how difficult it is for many to care for them.
	I do not need to say much about the multidimensional treatment foster-care programme built on the Oregon Social Learning Centre, because the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, ably helped by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has spoken about it brilliantly. They have rightly signalled that we are investing in this different model of intervention. I cannot go into the details of what it covers now. I will meet representatives of the Oregon Social Learning Centre in a couple of weeks' time to talk about their experience, and we will have a conference on the matter. It is clearly an important area. It is a classic role for government to experiment and to try to improve practice.
	We have not talked much about returning from care. Given what I said about how short the time in care is for many children, we should be as concerned about the quality of the return process from care into the family and the support that is wrapped around. The danger, if social services—or children's authorities, as they will be—focus simply on the care process is that, when it is decided that children no longer need to be in care and they are sent back, unless they receive a package of support the risk that they will be back into care in a few years' time is increased. So they cannot be returned and then forgotten—not that good authorities do that.
	As regards children leaving care, there is a lot to say on that but not much time in which to do so. The Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 requires local authorities to assess the financial support needs of care leavers. Each care leaver must have an assessment of his financial needs, including support needs for further and higher education. Ealing illustrated a brilliant way of doing that.
	I agree with the noble Baroness that more needs to be done, but I firmly assert that the situation is vastly better than it was as regards the statutory obligation to make an assessment, the duty to continue the corporate parenting role at least to the age of 21 and beyond, if necessary, and the duty to provide housing. They are all new measures that did not exist before 1997. A lot has been done, but there is a lot more to do.
	What else is there to say about Next Steps? As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, signalled, I agree that we need to continue an evaluation of what works. Sometimes it is surprising that Britain does not have a very good practice evaluation of what works. I am discussing that with officials. If, for example, we find that family group conferencing works, in those situations it is indefensible that people do not do it. Therefore, I will think about that. I do not want to imply that we are being dirigiste from the centre, but it is indefensible not to have it when we find out what works. We need a tougher process of challenging those who will not listen to what evaluations show and then do not have the capacity to manage such situations.
	As regards the shortage of people, both in numbers and skills, we will signal some of those issues in the children's workforce strategy. That will be the start of the process. As one would expect, we will not get instant, magic answers, but the issues have to be up the agenda.
	I think that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and others spoke about the cost of children not getting better care. A number of them will have mental health problems for the rest of their lives as a consequence of the risk of drug dependency and of drifting into crime. I do not want to pathologise all people in care, because that is not true. Clearly, if the care process has been poor, the state and society do not escape further costs when the care process ends.
	Again, I should not talk just about the care process. The quality of care given before a child goes into care—preventing the need to go into care—and the support given to a family after a child leaves care also add to the totality of how we as a society try to remediate some of the serious disadvantages in a family's circumstances that has led to emotional and developmental damage to a child. We would be fools if we thought that that was a simple set of processes.
	Clearly, there is great relevance to the Every Child Matters: Change for Children process as a part of that. The challenge to me and to local authorities is to make the Change for Children process mean something for those children who are in care; those who, but for better inventions, would have been in care; and those who have returned from care to home. So our mindset must not be the narrow one, but the wider one, as part of the implementation of the Change for Children programme and the Children Act.
	I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for again stimulating us to reflect and challenge each other as we need to on that agenda.
	{**NM**}

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I rise briefly, first, to thank the Minister for his extensive reply and his clear commitment to this work. We very much look forward to the publication of the workforce strategy.
	The Minister referred to the context of children's lives in care, which was very helpful. When I spoke with foster carers recently, they emphasised that when a child is in care there is an opportunity to make an intervention that could be a vast resource to that child when he goes back to a family. When children leave care it is so much harder to work with them.
	The Minister referred to the social brain, which it may be helpful to put in the context of mental health. After all, 10 per cent of children in the general population have mental disorders. We need to recognise those with the most profound needs and those who have suffered most awful trauma. Some children are very resilient and can do well, but we must recognise that we need high aspirations for such children. For the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, gave, some of those children are not doing as well as they should.
	I regret that my noble friend who was going to speak about current achievements in care was unable to take part. There will be a meeting on 15 March in Portcullis House—the Prime Minister may be present—to celebrate the achievements of children in care. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part today. It is encouraging to see such an interest and such a range of expertise. I thank the Minister for his response and look forward to working with him in the future. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Continuance of Part VII) Order 2005

Baroness Amos: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 January be approved [7th Report from the Joint Committee].

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the order, which was laid in the House on 20 January 2004, renews for a further 12 months the vast majority of the Part VII provisions of the Terrorism Act. The Part VII provisions are specifically designed to deal with the ongoing security situation in Northern Ireland. They are temporary measures because the Government are fully committed to the removal of all special provisions when the prevailing security environment allows.
	Regrettably, the return to a normal security situation has not yet been achieved. Undoubtedly, there has been substantial progress for the 10 past years. The ceasefires remain in place, and 2004 saw the lowest number of paramilitary murders since 1969. The Government have responded to that with troop levels now at their lowest since 1970, while the number of bases and installations that they occupy is down from 105 to 64.
	Sadly, however, we are far from the normality that all Northern Ireland craves. The IMC second report on paramilitary activity, which was published in November 2004, concluded that paramilitary violence in the form of murder, shooting and assaults remained at a disturbingly high level. There has also been continued evidence of paramilitary involvement in serious organised crime; not least, the Northern Bank incident which involved kidnapping and hostage-taking as well as robbery.
	Recent weeks have seen the use of incendiary devices by dissident republicans and a series of attacks on property and individuals as part of an apparent loyalist feud. Sadly, the overall picture is clear. Paramilitary activity continues and, with it, the threat to the lives of our citizens. The Government will not compromise on their duty to protect their citizens from that threat, nor will they shirk their responsibility to apprehend those whose actions give rise to it. It is the Government's assessment that in light of the current security situation, the provisions in Part VII remain necessary and proportionate and, thus, must be renewed.
	As part of our commitment to the ultimate removal of Part VII, the Government keep their provisions under constant review. Each provision is examined individually to see whether it is necessary in the prevailing security environment. Each year, a report on the operation of the Act is prepared by an independent reviewer—the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. His 2004 report is, as ever, insightful, challenging and objective. The report receives the most serious consideration from the Government and plays an important role in informing these debates.
	As noble Lords may have noted from the draft order, the Government have determined that this year Section 67(3) and (4) and Sections 70 and 71 may safely lapse. I will deal with them in turn. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, again recommended the lapsing of Section 67(3) in his 2004 report. His view is that the special bail provisions have a negligible effect because judges are obliged to ensure that their decisions are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2004 the Government carried out a wide-ranging consultation and have come to the same conclusion. Therefore, we are not seeking its renewal; nor the renewal of Section 67(4), the lapse of which is consequential on that of Section 67(3).
	Sections 70 and 71 will also lapse. These provisions allow the Secretary of State to direct that young persons charged with scheduled offences could be held in a prison or other place while on remand. Developments in the youth justice system have rendered Sections 70 and 71 obsolete. Young persons charged with scheduled offences will now be accommodated at Hydebank Wood or the refurbished juvenile justice centres, so the sections are no longer necessary.
	There are two further issues that I should like to address. First, in his 2004 report the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, strongly recommended the repeal of Section 108. This provision allows for the opinion of a senior police officer to be considered admissible for a Section 11 or membership charge. The Government remain of the view that this provision has utility and should be fully tested. Relevant cases remain within the criminal justice system. They have therefore decided to retain the provision. Nevertheless, the arguments raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, merit careful consideration and will be examined closely as part of our review of Part VII powers.
	Secondly, as noble Lords may be aware, the Part VII provisions contain a sunset clause which means that they will expire in February 2006. The decision to include such a clause was made in the hope that by this time Northern Ireland would have returned to a normal security environment. Regrettably, as the November IMC report indicated, that point has not yet been reached. The Government will consider carefully over the coming months whether and in what form the Part VII provisions should continue after February 2006. I should make it clear, however, that any extension would occur only if it was justified by the prevailing security situation.
	The Government renew these provisions with sadness. They retain them only as a necessary and proportionate response to the continuing terrorist threat. I commend the order to the House. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 January be approved [7th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Amos.)

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for setting out the terms of the order. It is not my intention to follow her in going through the details of the order. We are reassured by her assurance that these are kept continually under review. Suffice it to say that, like the Government, we consider the provisions contained in Part VII of the Terrorism Act 2000 to be regrettable but absolutely essential in the continuing fight against terrorism in Northern Ireland.
	The noble Baroness has reminded us that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who independently reviews this part of the Act, agrees that the main provisions remain necessary. The measures in Part VII follow closely the old Northern Ireland emergency provisions Acts and the emergency legislation passed following the Omagh bombing. My party, whether in government or in opposition, has never shirked from backing essential anti-terrorism measures.
	Part VII of the Terrorism Act 2000 is of course the only part of the Act that needs to be renewed on an annual basis. That was based on the hope that, by now, as a result of the Belfast agreement, the security situation in Northern Ireland would be relatively normal and that many, if not all, of these provisions would be allowed to lapse. Like all noble Lords, I look forward to a time when they really are no longer needed. Sadly, that is not the case today—nor, I might add, in the foreseeable future.
	Next year, as the noble Baroness has reminded us, this part of the Act will lapse altogether and primary legislation will be required to re-enact it. It gives me no pleasure to say that I have little doubt that such legislation will be before your Lordships' House within the next year.
	The reasons are clear. Nearly seven years on from the Belfast agreement, terrorist activity continues to blight society in so many parts of Northern Ireland. The promise to move away from paramilitarism to what the agreement calls "exclusively democratic and peaceful means" has not been kept.
	Despite the fact that the Provisional IRA maintains its own tightly defined "cessation of military operations", and the statement issued last November by the UDA signalling its future peaceful intent, the reality is that all the main terrorist organisations, republican and loyalist, remain armed and active. There is no doubt too that dissident republicans still pose a significant threat.
	One only has to read the reports of the Independent Monitoring Commission for confirmation of all this. We await the publication of the commission's fourth report tomorrow without, sadly, any great expectation that it will point to a significant change in the overall situation. Indeed, since the Independent Monitoring Commission last reported in November, we have had the IRA's involvement in the £26.5 million bank heist in Belfast, to which the noble Baroness has referred, planned at the same time as the Sinn Fein leadership was trying to negotiate its way back into the government of Northern Ireland.
	All mainstream democratic parties in these islands, the Chief Constable and the Garda Commissioner, and the United States Administration, accept that the IRA was responsible for the robbery. They are clear that the Sinn Fein leadership must have known about plans for the robbery. The response of the IRA and the Sinn Fein leadership is to be in denial of their own actions.
	Last week, the IRA issued a statement saying that its patience had been "tried to the limit" and that it was now withdrawing its December offer to,
	"put all weapons beyond use",
	and to move into what it called a "new mode". In other words, as one commentator in Belfast put it, the IRA was,
	"withdrawing the offer to do something it was already refusing to do anyway".
	This was quickly followed by another statement telling the Government not to underestimate the seriousness of the previous day's statement. As a result there is now a good deal of speculation over the future direction of the Provisional IRA and whether it is considering a return to violence.
	If all this is an attempt on the part of the republican movement to threaten and bully both the British and Irish Governments, I urge them both to stand firm. As my noble friend Lord Glentoran said in the debate last week, they should not budge one inch from the principle that there can be no place in government for Sinn Fein while that party remains linked with armed terrorist gangs. They should press ahead with genuinely democratic parties and examine ways of making direct rule more accountable to the people of Northern Ireland. Instead, they should use all the resources at their disposal to stamp down on terrorism and other forms of criminal activity being carried out by the paramilitary groups—republican and loyalist alike.
	There should certainly be no question of offering terrorist groups millions of pounds of taxpayers' money for the so-called retraining of its members, as the Prime Minister's chief of staff reportedly did recently in respect of the UDA. Nor, given the current uncertainties, should there be any question of further reductions in security or of implementing the Sinn Fein wish-list in the 2003 Joint Declaration that includes so-called "on-the-run" terrorists.
	In both Northern Ireland and the Republic there are far too many people, and too many organisations, arrogantly strutting around as if they are above the law, administering their own form of barbaric justice within their communities. The latest version, in which victims' hands are tied together before being shot through, has been dubbed the "Padre Pio". It is both gruesome and sickeningly offensive to all Roman Catholics. These people create misery for the largely working-class, vulnerable people they claim to represent. They rake in millions through organised crime and they are the main barrier to the peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland all of us want to see. They need to be met with the full force of the law, and if the law is inadequate, we should have no hesitation in looking at ways of strengthening it.
	I applaud the work done by the police, the Armed Forces and other agencies such as the Organised Crime Task Force and the Assets Recovery Agency to combat terrorism in Northern Ireland. They all deserve our fullest support. This order gives for a further year powers that the police and the Armed Forces in particular need to protect the whole community. We have no hesitation in giving it our backing.

Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness for giving us an account of the order. The first thing to say about the order is that we are not where we wanted to be. We have the report on the operation of the Terrorism Act and I am glad that it has been taken seriously. Several of the points raised in it in terms of changes have been acknowledged by the noble Baroness.
	I feel that my voice is rationed at the moment, but I want to comment on the report because my noble friend Lord Carlile has set out at paragraph 2.9 where he believes matters stand in Northern Ireland. The report states:
	"From the evidence provided to me it appears that again in 2004 there were several incidents involving acts of terrorism that demonstrated a continuing danger from sophisticated terrorist crime. There were also numerous serious criminal offences of a non-terrorist nature in which there appears to have been or may well have been a strong terrorist link.
	It continues:
	"There has been a real reduction in cross-sectarian attacks, though a level of intimidation remains and is of serious concern. There continues inter-necine violence within some loyalist paramilitary groups, and intimidation within parts of the republican community against Catholics who participate in civil institutions established as part of the Good Friday Agreement".
	As I have said, we are not where we want to be. In Northern Ireland it is often two or three steps forward and one or two back. We seem to be going back at the moment because of the bank robbery and the IRA saying, "We are not giving up our weapons; we have withdrawn that offer". It is clearly a serious position.
	However, we understand that we still have got the ceasefire. My noble friend Lord Carlile expresses serious concerns about intimidation. I do not think that all this intimidation and criminal activity equates with a ceasefire. The IRA having withdrawn from its position, to what extent are the Government able to put pressure on paramilitary groups to diminish their activities? If they are on ceasefire such matters should be constantly diminished so that they become nil. To what extent are the Government able to ensure that?
	We on these Benches support the continuance of the order.

Lord Rogan: My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in producing, once more, his excellent report. As always, he has considered each aspect of Part VII individually and concluded, wisely, that it is necessary to continue the vast majority of its provisions, with which we agree.
	As noble Lords have noted, Part VII is due to lapse this time next year. Since the Terrorism Act was passed, Parliament has had to consider the renewal of Part VII annually, and yet on no such occasion has anyone suggested that the situation in Northern Ireland has changed so much that the provisions of Part VII would soon become unnecessary. At no time since he began to review the implementation of Part VII has the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, indicated that Northern Ireland is reaching the point when these provisions will no longer be required.
	Utopia is not just round the corner. We are no closer to reaching a "normal" security situation in Northern Ireland than we were in 2001 or in any other year since then. Do the Government really believe that when February comes round again next year we will somehow have moved so far forward in a political process—a political process that has seen the Assembly suspended since September 2002—that Part VII can be dispensed with without a second thought? Have the Government thought that far ahead?
	Perhaps I may remind the noble Baroness of the assessment expressed by the former Minister of State, Jane Kennedy, when Part VII was up for renewal this time last year. She said:
	"There is reason to be optimistic about the current situation. Our overall judgement is that the ceasefires of the Provisional IRA and the Ulster Volunteer Force remain in place. Troop numbers are at their lowest level since 1970 and the Army has closed, demolished or vacated 51 of the 105 bases and installations that it occupied at the time of the 1999 PIRA ceasefire".
	One year later, are the Government still as optimistic? I really do not see how they could be.
	As the Minister has alluded to, the IRA is the only suspect in a police investigation into December's heist of £26 million from the Northern Bank. In the last year, three IRA men were convicted of training FARC terrorists in Colombia; the Irish Prime Minister has also publicly linked the IRA to several other recent robberies; and the IRA is also believed to have been behind last week's murder in south Belfast.
	Other noble Lords have alluded to the fact that the IRA is known to be carrying out even more gruesome and sickening forms of punishment beatings—shooting the victims through both palms while their hands are held and tied together as if in prayer.
	To top it all, 2005 had barely begun when the IRA issued two threatening statements within 24 hours of each other—one withdrawing the organisation's offer to put its weapons beyond use and the other warning both Governments not to underestimate the seriousness of the current state of the peace process. Do the Government really believe that such activities will stop suddenly; that everything will be "back to normal" in 12 months and that the IRA will simply disappear?
	Do the Government still believe that the IRA's ceasefire is still in place? According to the definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act itself, the Provisional IRA is still clearly engaged in terrorism. The organisation's threat is,
	"designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public".
	And the threat is made,
	"for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause".
	As my colleague, David Burnside, said in another place when this legislation was discussed on Monday, the Government should now do what is required of them under the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 and specify the Provisional IRA.
	The Government cannot rest on their laurels. The renewal of Part VII is good and necessary, but there must also be a political will, and a political courage, to confront Sinn Fein/IRA as a terrorist organisation. Why are the Government continuing to appease an armed terrorist organisation which threatens the democratic process in Northern Ireland and continues to be fully engaged in acts of crime and brutality? Is it not time that the Government stood up to Sinn Fein/IRA and accepted that an inclusive Executive is just not possible in the current climate?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I share the disappointment that we have to renew this order this evening. In our debate last week we went over many of the wider political issues which have been raised this evening, but I would like to reiterate a couple of points.
	I believe that all noble Lords who spoke, and in particular the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, were concerned about the activities of the IRA and the link between Sinn Fein and the IRA. May I repeat what I said last week and the robust message which was given by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister when he told the Sinn Fein leadership at their meeting that the IRA must end all paramilitary and criminal activity? That remains the position and it will continue to be the Government's position.
	The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, was concerned about the issue of accountability, which we also discussed during last week's debate. That is very important indeed, particularly in the context of continuing direct rule. It is one of the issues at which we are looking. A number of proposals have been made in that regard. I agree with the noble Viscount that the Armed Forces, the police and others require our continued support.
	The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, raised the question of putting pressure on paramilitary groups to diminish their activities. Obviously one aspect of that is the work being done by the police, the Armed Forces and others in Northern Ireland. But the other aspect is the clear political message which is being sent in that regard.
	The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, and the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, raised questions about the ceasefire. It is our view that the ceasefire remains in place. It is not an easy judgment to make, but it is our feeling that we must continue to judge these matters in the round. The Chief Constable said in his statement last week that the provisional IRA has the capability and capacity. On our current assessment we do not believe that it has the intent. But we shall constantly review that.
	My right honourable friend the Secretary of State can specify groups which he believes are, first, concerned in promoting or encouraging terrorism; and secondly, have not established or are not maintaining a complete and unequivocal ceasefire. There are further mechanisms in the form of the IMC which was established to monitor any continuing activity by paramilitary groups. I cannot pre-empt the report which the IMC is due to make tomorrow, but I can assure the House that we shall look at these issues again in the light of that report. I hope that we can now agree the order.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997 (Amnesty Period) Order 2005

Baroness Amos: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 26 January be approved [7th Report from the Joint Committee].

Baroness Amos: My Lords, this is the third such order and I should like to set out briefly its purpose. The order appoints 24 February 2006 as the date before which the amnesty period identified in a non-statutory decommissioning scheme must end. The amnesty period is the time during which firearms, ammunition and explosives can be decommissioned in accordance with the scheme. The amnesty provides immunity from prosecution for the offences set out in the schedules to the 1997 Act—offences that might be committed during the decommissioning process.
	Most relate to possession, but others concern offences which may stem from a person's participation in decommissioning, not necessarily centred on the weapons involved, but on the behaviour which may accompany participation such as the withholding of information or making arrangements for terrorists. Section 2 of the 1970 Act, as amended by the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning (Amendment) Act 2002, requires that a scheme must identify the amnesty period and that it must end before 27 February 2003 unless the Secretary of State, by order, appoints a later date. The purpose of this order is to extend that period until the end of 23 February next year.
	I am very aware of the anomaly of bringing this order before the House today when only last week the Provisional IRA made clear its intention to withdraw all previously made offers of decommissioning. In that respect the timing is unfortunate, but in terms of the process itself we are determined to move on. It is necessary for us to have this legislation in place to allow us to continue to seek progress on the decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons.
	Since the signing of the Good Friday agreement, the Government have consistently expressed the view that decommissioning has been, and remains, a vital element of taking violence out of politics in Northern Ireland permanently. That, and stable, inclusive devolved government, remains our goal.
	As this House has discussed in recent weeks, immediate political progress does not appear likely. The process in Northern Ireland has been seriously set back by recent acts of criminality, which have caused grievous damage to the trust that had been established between parties. Those acts have ended for the foreseeable future any hopes of a return to devolved administration in Northern Ireland. It is deeply disappointing that the progress that appeared so close in December has been lost. Those who saw the published details of that settlement will know how much could have been achieved and how much has been lost, at least for the present.
	My right honourable friend the Prime Minister recently met the Sinn Fein leadership to convey to them the seriousness of the situation and to tell them in person that if the situation is to be retrieved, the IRA must end all paramilitary and criminal activity. The Government will continue to use measures such as this decommissioning order to facilitate the ending of violence in Northern Ireland. We strongly urge all paramilitary groups, both republican and loyalist, to decommission the weapons that have caused so much suffering in the past.
	I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to General John de Chastelain and his colleagues. We thank them for their commitment, perseverance and integrity.
	The people of Northern Ireland, and, indeed, the Republic of Ireland, voted for the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement. They understood that for the agreement to succeed, it fundamentally required all sides to work together to create a peaceful, inclusive future for all. Their vote opened the way for those associated with paramilitary groups to campaign for their goals through peaceful and democratic means. They could reasonably have expected those parties who represent, and have links with, paramilitary organisations to have delivered in full their side of the deal. It is more than disappointing that some seven years later the people of Northern Ireland are still waiting for full and complete decommissioning.
	The Government will renew their efforts to ensure that the people of Northern Ireland are rewarded for their patience and long suffering. We want to see the completion of the decommissioning process and a peaceful future for all. This order is part of that process and I commend it to the House. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the order laid before the House on 26 January be approved [7th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Amos.)

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I rise to support the order before the House. Again, the Lord President set out the purpose of the order and I shall not repeat the detail of what she said. We support the Government in their efforts to pursue the goal of decommissioning, despite the disappointing statements recently made by the IRA.
	Obviously, much has happened since the Conservative government first introduced this legislation. In particular, the Belfast agreement of 1998 looked forward to:
	"The decommissioning of all paramilitary arms within two years following endorsement in referendums".
	According to that timetable, all weapons should have been put beyond use by the end of May 2000. Instead, nearly five years on from that date, the issue of arms and decommissioning continues to cast its dark shadow over the entire political process in Northern Ireland.
	It is true that three acts of decommissioning have taken place but, due to the confidentiality clauses in the decommissioning scheme published by the British and Irish Governments in 1998, we have absolutely no idea of how much of the IRA's arsenal has been destroyed.
	Before Christmas, as part of the aborted comprehensive deal, the IRA issued a statement in which it promised to place all weapons beyond use. Now, following the breakdown of those negotiations, in the face of authoritative claims that the IRA was behind the Northern Bank heist, that offer has been taken off the table.
	The blunt truth is that throughout this process the IRA has used the arms issue in order to extract ever more concessions from the British and Irish Governments. We have had so-called "historic" offers put on the table, only to be withdrawn at some later stage, and then reinserted when it suits the republican movement. It is time for the games and the posturing to stop. They should deliver what the people of Northern Ireland thought they were being promised in 1998.
	We are in no doubt. Decommissioning is not an optional extra. It is a central requirement of the Belfast agreement and is absolutely vital if the community is to have any confidence that republicans are serious about making the move from terrorism and criminality to,
	"exclusively democratic and peaceful means".
	Like the Minister, I pay tribute to the painstaking work of General de Chastelain and the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. Clearly, though, that simple verification by the General and his team is not enough.
	The aborted negotiations in October 2003 between Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist Party, and those last December involving the DUP, clearly demonstrated a need for greater transparency in the decommissioning process. It is not my intention to be prescriptive about this but, given the IRA's record, we find the Unionist position on this issue wholly reasonable.
	Let us be clear about one thing. While attention inevitably focuses on IRA decommissioning, because it is linked with a party, Sinn Fein, that would be entitled to ministerial office in a revived executive, we are equally adamant about the need for loyalists to deal with their weapons too. There is no justification—and there never has been, any justification—for acts of loyalist terrorism. Regrettably, as a result of the current political impasse—compounded by the IRA's responsibility for the Northern Bank heist—the prospects of early decommissioning appear remote.
	We sincerely hope that once the general election is out of the way—whichever government are in power—we can make progress and these issues can be satisfactorily resolved. What the Northern Bank heist showed, however, is that along with the decommissioning of weapons, we need to see a decommissioning of the mindset that regards such activities as legitimate. On current evidence, that could take some time.
	In the mean time we believe that without the extension of the amnesty period provided for in this order the prospects of decommissioning would be less rather than more likely. We therefore support the order.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I too thank the Lord President for bringing this order, which of course these Benches will support. In the euphoria following the Good Friday agreement, there was an expectation that decommissioning could occur by 2002—the latest date set down in the 1997 Act. However, as we have heard, it took almost that long to achieve the beginning of decommissioning. Therefore, it will take longer to achieve total decommissioning, so the amnesty must be extended.
	It has always been recognised that decommissioning is a process. No one ever expected the IRA to decommission all its weapons at once. However, the Good Friday agreement talks about the total disarmament of all paramilitary groups—and that is what we are aiming for. While the decommissioning that has taken place in the past is obviously welcome and a significant step, we are still nowhere near the total decommissioning that we all want to see. I share everyone's disappointment that the IRA has withdrawn its offer of progress on decommissioning. However, it has offered statements of progress in the past and withdrawn them. Perhaps it was not the wisest thing to do, if the IRA wants to demonstrate that it is genuinely committed to peace and democracy. If it wants to avoid accusations in the future and to show that it is an organisation to be trusted, then withdrawing offers of progress is not the way to do it.
	The Government now need to look for a clear and unequivocal statement, from the IRA and from all paramilitary groups which claim to be on ceasefire, that they are committed to paragraph 13 of the joint declaration. We need to see this demonstrated on the ground. That means an end to paramilitary assaults, exiling, and so on, as I stated in our debate on Northern Ireland last week.
	Is the Minister aware whether any contact has taken place between the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning—and I too pay great tribute to General de Chastelain and all the people involved in the IICD—and any of the loyalist paramilitary groups? Has any contact taken place in particular with the UDA and UFF, as we despecified them last year? Also, what are the Government doing to encourage other loyalist groups to engage with the IICD?
	We on these Benches do not believe that in a democratic society there is any place for illegally held weapons. We have always called for full decommissioning by both loyalist and republican paramilitary groups. We have been supportive of the progress that has been made on this issue to date. However, we had always hoped that we would be further down the line to total decommissioning than we are now. We recognise that it is a process and that no paramilitary group was going to decommission all its weapons at once. Yet now that we have started out on this process, we cannot give the IRA, in particular, any reason not to decommission its weapons. That is what will happen if we do not pass this order.

Lord Rogan: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness for bringing the order to the House.
	For some eight years, all those involved in the Northern Ireland peace process have waited patiently for the Provisional IRA to give up its weapons and declare that its so-called war is finally over. We have waited for acts of decommissioning to bring closure to this phase of its political strategy—the armalite and the ballot box. Its reluctance to move from this military political philosophy has never been more apparent than in recent weeks. Even after all that Northern Ireland has been through, after all the work that the two states have undertaken—and I thank them for it—Sinn Fein/IRA reverts to type as soon as it comes under the heat that affects all democratic parties. That is the heat of accountability, democratic responsibility and, of course, legality.
	However, one cannot be too surprised at Sinn Fein/IRA's response. Why do I say this? Because this sort of blackmail, bullying and threats of a return to violence have always worked for the Provisionals in the past. So what are all the democrats who live in the United Kingdom and Ireland supposed to think? Does Sinn Fein/IRA want one last spin on the merry-go-round? Or is the IRA seriously contemplating going back to its terror tactics of the past?
	As has been stated, the two Governments have a choice. Either they continue to appease Sinn Fein/IRA and treat it like a political party that is exempt from the parliamentary standards that apply to all other western democratic parties, or they call its bluff. We all know the story of the boy who cried wolf.
	The PSNI and the NIO do not believe that the IRA is about to resume its terror war on the UK mainland, nor do the security forces in the Republic of Ireland. The decommissioning issue has run its course and the Governments must act to bring closure to this phase of the political process. That means suspending Sinn Fein for however long it takes for it to deliver on its commitments under the Belfast agreement. Everyone else has done so, everyone else is desperate for devolution and power sharing, but only the two Governments have the power to act to bring those about. I implore them to do so.
	The task falls to the Governments to direct the process. This time they must not fail. For if they do—if they do not stand up to those who have utter contempt for the democratic process and the consequences of breaking every law in the land—the unity of purpose with which the Governments negotiated the Belfast agreement will be blunted.
	This situation can go on no longer without a shadow falling over the two Governments' handling of the process. My colleagues and I have the utmost respect for the time, effort, determination and dedication that the Government have spent on the political process since 1997, but their record is in danger of being tarnished, and, with it, the spirit of the Belfast agreement crushed.

Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I hesitate to rise, but there is one point I should like to make which I hope will receive a response from the noble Baroness. It is quite clear to me, having observed these matters, that, to the IRA, visible decommissioning equals surrender. I believe that there will have to be visible decommissioning, but somehow, brains must be brought to bear so that that can happen without it being seen as surrender. It is a very important issue which must be tackled, otherwise it may well be so distant that it is beyond us. I believe that the whole business of visible decommissioning must somehow be delinked from surrender in the IRA mind.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, it is some time now since I introduced the first measure which had the effect of protecting those who were in the act of delivering up their weapons for decommissioning from the risk of being prosecuted for possession. That is what this order extends, with some variations. It was a necessary measure years ago and it remains necessary. However, I hope that the Government will make the very most of the cardinal feature of this measure. It is easy for it to be misrepresented as a concession, a weakening. It is not. I agree with what has already been said in this short debate. It is important that the IRA should be deprived of any possible argument to justify a failure to decommission its weapons. In that process this extension measure plays an important part.
	I shall not detain the House for more than another 10 seconds. I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, in saying that balance has always secured its purpose for the IRA from successive British Governments. I do not believe that for one moment.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken for the support that has been given to the order. I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that we need to deliver what the people of Northern Ireland thought that they were getting.
	Transparency goes to the heart of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt. It is clear, especially given what has happened recently, that there has to be public confidence in the decommissioning process. That is the only way that it will facilitate political progress. We recognise that greater transparency is required in the future than there has been in previous Acts on the arms dealt with and how long it will take to complete the process.
	I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, for his points about the importance of this necessary measure not being misrepresented as a concession. He knows more about that than anyone given the important role that he played in relation to it.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, is right about the Good Friday agreement: it is about the total disarmament of all paramilitary groups. She asked me about organisations in contact with the IICD. All noble Lords know that on 2 February this year the Provisional IRA stated that it was taking all its proposals off the table. In 2004 the UDA resumed contact, which remains in effect. The UVF officially broke off contact with the IICD in January 2003.
	It is our view that we should support those groups that want to give up their paramilitary past and move forward to peaceful democratic politics. We should support those elements committed to a genuinely peaceful society in Northern Ireland while cracking down on the elements still committed to criminal activity and behaviour.
	The noble Lord, Lord Rogan, talked about the importance of acts of decommissioning bringing closure. I could not agree more. That is what the Government want to see and why we want the process to continue. However, I recognise the potential associated difficulties in the light of recent events.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Scotland Act 1998 (Modifications of Schedule 5) Order 2005

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 9 December 2004 be approved [4th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I shall speak also to the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2005 and the Scotland Act 1998 (Modifications of Schedule 5) (No. 2) Order 2005. These were laid before the House on 18 and 25 January respectively. The Government wish to thank the House for agreeing to consider these technical pieces of legislation together, as is normal for instruments under the Scotland Act.
	The orders being considered today are made under different Scotland Act powers. Two are being made under Section 30(2) and one under Section 63. Noble Lords are by now familiar with powers at Sections 30(2) and 63 of the Scotland Act, which are explained in the Explanatory Memorandum accompanying each instrument.
	I turn first to the Scotland Act 1998 (Modifications of Schedule 5) Order. Article 2 amends the reservation at Section H2 (Health and Safety) of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998. The amendment will permit the Scottish Parliament to legislate in relation to fire safety on construction sites. It will also allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate in relation to fire safety on premises that were listed in Part I of Schedule 1 to the Fire Certificates (Special Premises) Regulations 1976 (S.I. 1976/2003) on 1 July 1999, when the Scottish Parliament took on its full powers. The Explanatory Memorandum available to your Lordships provides the policy background to the order. In short, it reflects the fact that fire safety law is undergoing reform across the UK.
	Amending the reservation to give the Scottish Parliament legislative competence in respect of the matters that I have just described is a further step to allow a consistent split of policy responsibility across the UK between the Health and Safety Executive and ODPM in England and Wales and the HSE and the Scottish Executive in Scotland. The ODPM has been working on a regulatory reform order to give effect to this policy split in England and Wales. The Scottish Executive are taking forward a Fire Bill in the Scottish Parliament, which will give effect to the policy split in Scotland in respect of those areas within the Scottish Parliament's legislative competence. The Scottish Executive, Health and Safety Executive and ODPM have discussed and agreed the content of the order. The Scottish Parliament considered and approved the order on 26 January.
	I turn now to the Section 63 order, which is the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2005. As noble Lords will be aware, this is commonly known as an executive devolution order. It transfers functions to the Scottish Ministers in respect of a number of different policy matters where primary legislation remains a matter for this Parliament. It is about recognising that, in this instance, Scottish Ministers are better placed to exercise those functions in, or as regards, Scotland. The order is an updating exercise and transfers functions in four different policy areas. These are: fire service pensions, electricity and energy, food regulation and road traffic regulation.
	In respect of fire service pensions, Scottish Ministers will be able to exercise an order-making power in the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, which repealed the relevant provisions previously executively devolved to the Scottish Ministers in the Fire Services Act 1947. That will enable them to set out the details for fire-fighters' pensions in Scotland. In respect of electricity and energy, the order transfers to the Scottish Ministers functions of the Secretary of State specified in Section 3A of the Electricity Act 1989. Section 3A specifies the principal objective and general duties of the Secretary of State and the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority in carrying out functions under Part 1 of the 1989 Act.
	The order also transfers functions of the Energy Act 2004 and Section 32(7) of the 1989 Act. Those sections provide for amendments to the requirements for Scottish Ministers to consult before making an order in relation to the renewables obligation under Sections 32 to 32C of the 1989 Act. Finally, the order also transfers a new function, under Section 32BA of the 1989 Act, which allows green certificates issued in respect of electricity generated from eligible renewables sources in Northern Ireland to be produced to GEMA as proof that a supplier has met its renewables obligation.
	In relation to food, the order transfers to Scottish Ministers functions relating to the regulation of substances falling within the definition of "food" in the Food Safety Act 1990, as amended by a European directive—Regulation 178/200. The order transfers those functions only in so far as they are not already exercisable by Scottish Ministers.
	That ensures that Scottish Ministers will continue to be able to regulate food safety and standards for Scotland for all substances considered to be food in Community law. Specifically, the functions being transferred arise under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985, the Food Safety Act 1990 and the Food Standards Act 1999. Those Acts are the core framework for the regulation of food in Great Britain, including the transposition of Community measures, and all share the definition of food contained in the 1990 Act, as amended.
	The order also allows for the concurrent transfer of the powers of Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 for the limited purpose of regulating food in so far as those powers are not already exercisable by the Scottish Ministers for that purpose. European Community legislation on food safety and standards is, from time to time, transposed using those powers.
	In respect of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, the order before us changes the current position. As things stand, the Home Secretary has the power to make Anti-Terrorist Traffic Regulation Orders—ATTROs—in Scotland. The Government have agreed with the Scottish Executive that functions to regulate or control a road in the case of a terrorist threat should be exercised by Scottish Ministers. This is administratively sensible as the Scottish Ministers are responsible for road transport policy in Scotland.
	As ATTROs make provision for dealing with the reserved matter of terrorism, Scottish Ministers will be required to seek the agreement of the Secretary of State before making such orders.
	Functions under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 as amended will be transferred by the order. Scottish Ministers will then be able to exercise functions—for example, ahead of international summits held in Scotland—affecting the movement of vehicles and other traffic. Again, those will be exercised in relation to avoiding or reducing the likelihood of any terrorist threat.
	I describe the order as an updating exercise to reflect the fact that UK or European legislation has been changed or amended in the four different policy areas. The order will allow the Scottish Ministers to exercise similar functions provided for in updated legislation governing new regimes as they have done previously. All relevant UK government departments and the Scottish Executive have discussed and agreed the content of the order. The Scottish Parliament considered and approved the order on 1 February.
	The final order before us is the Scotland Act 1998 (Modifications of Schedule 5) (No. 2) Order 2005. Article 2 amends the reservation at Section B8 in Part 2 of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act. Among other things, this reservation relates to the interception of communications. The amendments are needed in respect of the definitions of "Place of detention", "person detained" and "Private telecommunication system". These will reflect the repeal of and changes to other legislation which those definitions currently refer to.
	The amendments are as follows. With reference to the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984—the 1984 Act—the definition of "Place of detention" is being replaced with reference to the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003—"the 2003 Act".
	The definition of "person detained" is being replaced by references to the appropriate detaining legislation, which are certain provisions of the 1984 Act and the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, the 2003 Act, and regulations made under provisions of the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act 1957. This new definition reflects the opportunity being taken to extend the definition of "person detained" to include all those detained in hospital by mental health legislation in addition to those detained via the criminal justice system. That reflects the existing powers under the 1984 Act.
	The definition of "private telecommunications system" is being updated by a definition drawn from the more recent Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which takes account of technological developments.
	The amendments have been discussed and agreed by the Department of Health, the Home Office and the Scottish Executive. The Scottish Parliament has not yet considered the order, but we expect that it will do so in the next couple of weeks. In drawing to a close, I thank the House again for continuing the usual practice of considering the orders as a package. I commend them to the House. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 9 December 2004 be approved [4th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)
	{**NM**}

The Duke of Montrose: My Lords, I support the orders that have been explained by the Minister. Sometimes issues and events present themselves in a way that is readily comprehensible and sometimes they do not. This morning, we had a nice easy one which came under the slogan, "Do it yourself" with a B&Q logo, three hulls and a neat lady keeping everything in what is called in the Navy "shipshape and Bristol fashion".
	This evening, we have this measure which has so many pieces and patches, amendments and subclauses that it is hard to follow how it can all be pieced together. If Ellen MacArthur's boat had to be assembled from such a diverse set of components, I doubt it would have made it out of the harbour, let alone round the world.
	As regards the relevant modifications of Schedule 5 order, which the Minister took pains to explain to us, one wonders slightly why the power has to be transferred and whether some of the matters could not be done under some kind of Sewel arrangement. Would that not have sufficed?
	I am glad that the Minister referred to Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Fire Certificates (Special Premises) Regulations 1976. Will he give some examples of what those special premises are likely to comprise that will become the responsibility of Scottish Ministers?
	As regards the devolution of powers to Scottish Ministers, is every possible aspect of food and the environment that has not already been tidied up covered by the measure? A slight worry is that the actual criteria are those laid down by an EC regulation. In Scotland, we are never particularly worried about our beef, which is a premium product, but there are always occasional worries about whether someone will try to regulate haggis in a way that we do not approve of.
	The Minister referred to a matter that puzzles me. There is an interesting overlap in Section B8 of Schedule 5 as regards some of the provisions that are being delegated to Scottish Ministers under the delegation of powers order. The third paragraph in the relevant section clearly reserves to Westminster special powers and other special provisions for dealing with terrorism. Is there some special construction that allows the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 not to be a special power when it is being used to introduce traffic calming to reduce the danger of terrorism? Does the fact that that function will be exercised only with the agreement of the Secretary of State mean that it is not really a devolved power? If that is the case, one wonders why it cannot be exercised by the Secretary of State acting alone. Presumably, he should be just as exercised about the security situation as Scottish Ministers.
	Subject to the Minister's answers, we are glad to welcome the measures.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the orders, although even with his explanation they do not seem to me to have the lapidary clarity that, in an ideal world, would be the background against which one debated such a disparate—dare I say?—ragbag of orders.
	Perhaps the Minister will reply to a few points of general interest. First, it appears that the Scotland Act 1998 (Modifications of Schedule 5) Order has come about partly through the review of fire safety in England and Wales although there appears some suggestion that it is also happening in Scotland. Is it an accident that these things are happening at the same time? Are they linked? Where does the initiative lie? Who requested these changes? That is far from clear.
	It is not clear why sites over which the Scottish Parliament will be able to legislate in respect of fire safety are chosen and others are reserved. What is the rationale for their reservation? If fire safety is to be devolved it should not be carved up with particular regard to the nature of the sites. On the face of it, that would lead to potential confusion.
	In turning to the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order, my eye alights on the road traffic regulation provisions. Again, I find it baffling, partly because the explanation advanced involved the legislative history of these amendments and changes rather than a clear statement of the objective which the Government and/or the Scottish Executive seek to achieve. Scottish Ministers are considered to be the appropriate authority to exercise those traffic regulation functions but only subject to the agreement—presumably the prior agreement—of the Home Secretary before the legislation is brought forward. As these matters deal with terrorism, it is right that the expertise of the United Kingdom Government should be available to the Scottish Executive if they are to lay down regulation orders. One would assume that they would avail themselves of that expertise in a consultative process. However, it appears to be a requirement of law that they may not enact these rules without the prior permission of the Home Secretary. If that is so, it seems to be a new kind of legislative power. I am unaware of other examples of such a contingency being operated. It throws up rather wider questions of a constitutional nature. If it is open only to the Scottish Executive to legislate with the agreement of the United Kingdom Minister, would it not, as the noble Duke suggested, be more sensible to leave the power for the purposes of dealing with terrorism clearly and explicitly for the responsible United Kingdom Minister? If the United Kingdom Minister is to second-guess the judgments made by the Scottish Executive, there is a clear risk of rifts, tension, friction and superarrogation, which is not administratively convenient. We really ought to have a little more explanation of what is in the minds of those who have devised this rather strange procedure.
	On the Modification of Schedule 5 (No. 2) Order, it is not entirely clear from where the initiative has come for that proposed change in definition of places of detention. It may well be a sensible step to take, but who has thought it necessary to introduce those changes? Is it being done on the initiative of the Scottish Executive because of their introduction of the 2003 Act; or is it part of a continuous tidying-up operation? If it is the latter, it seems a rather odd way to proceed. There is some case for the systematic review of legislation, rather than ad hoc amendment such as that proposed tonight.
	Raising those matters on the Floor of this House in this manner is not an adequate way to involve the public in consideration, whether the proposed changes are, as the Minister suggested, purely technical or whether there are issues of public import about which representations might reasonably be made. I am concerned about that somewhat untidy manner of proceeding. I make no complaint about what the Minister said; he gave an account of the legislative history, but the orders have come about as a result of political intervention from either the United Kingdom Government or the Scottish Executive. It would be interesting to know from where they originated.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I do not want to detain the Minister; I know that he has an important engagement outside the House for which he is already late. I just want to ask him two questions about the order concerning functions transferred to the Scottish Ministers. The first is about the fire and rescue services' pensions. From what he said, I was not quite sure whether that will involve the Scottish Executive paying pension to employees of the fire and rescue services. I realise that pensions are a reserved matter, so if Scottish Ministers are to do that, there must be an order.
	If that is the case, if money is to be paid by Scottish Ministers to the employees of the Scottish rescue services, will the money required for that be specifically transferred from Westminster to the Scottish Executive? Clearly, the Barnett formula would not cover a matter such as that. That is one question.
	My second question relates to the road traffic regulations. I understand that the road traffic regulations part of the order is to enable Scottish Ministers to do the right thing to protect important visitors to Scotland when there is a danger of terrorism. Because the protection of the public against terrorism is a reserved matter it is necessary for the Home Secretary to be involved.
	Will Scottish Ministers have to consult the Westminster Minister—presumably the Home Secretary—about the detail every time the roads have to be altered because there is a threat of terrorism in Scotland? That seems to me to be a rather clumsy arrangement. I can see that it might be necessary, but does the Scottish Minister have to consult the Home Secretary every time? This is probably a result of devolution but it is rather an awkward procedure.
	Those are two simple questions, therefore: on pensions and the Barnett formula, and on the consultation in relation to road traffic arrangements.
	{**NM**}

The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, I shall raise three points since we are speaking about Scotland. The first is very simple. As usual, I approve of this fairly tame clutch of orders, which are devolutionary in trend. I believe that the House should hear about all devolutions, irrespective of how minor they are.
	My second point is about anti-terrorist traffic regulation orders, or ATTROs—I like that mnemonic. Who will pay for the work? The leg work will clearly be done by the Scottish Ministers on behalf of the Home Secretary. I have in mind the G8 summit at Gleneagles, which will no doubt require a lot of work. I would certainly argue that the Home Secretary should pay for this work because, in the worst case scenario, it is the United Kingdom Government that may provoke the terrorism because the United Kingdom Government obviously control foreign policy in Scotland—Scotland being submerged so far as foreign policy is concerned. My ultimate remedy for that, of course—and it is a hope—is that the Minister will bring forward further modifications of Schedule 5, devolving foreign policy.
	Since we are discussing Scotland, my third point is again to complain about the Home Secretary, and in particular the way in which he announced changes to immigration and asylum earlier this week. I want to complain about the way that the Scottish Executive's Fresh Talent initiative was ridden over roughshod, probably even trashed. How will Scotland reverse its predicted decline in population when it has to be straitjacketed into an immigration policy suitable for the south-east of England? Logic therefore demands that I express a similar hope, even more forlorn, that immigration and asylum policy be devolved.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I will attempt to answer all the questions raised. As usual, if I miss any out, we will write.
	The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, asks why not have a Sewel Motion rather than taking the Section 30(2) route. We need to use the order-making power as Sewel Motions relate only to UK primary legislation going through Parliament. This order relates to the legislation already passed. He also asks why road traffic regulations are being transferred to Scottish Ministers. Scottish Ministers are already responsible for traffic regulation in Scotland. This order balances the devolved aspect of traffic regulation with a need to consider the reserved matters dealing with terrorism. Approval of the order will place Scotland in a position equivalent to that of the National Assembly for Wales for making ATTROs (anti-terrorist traffic regulation orders).
	The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, asked for examples of special premises under Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Fire Certificates (Special Premises) Regulations 1976. A few examples are manufacturing premises using highly flammable liquids and premises storing liquid gas in very large quantities.
	The noble Duke also asked whether every aspect of food was included as a result of the order. Scottish Ministers have devolved competence to act in relation to food as defined within the parameters of the GB Food Safety Act 1990 at the time of devolution. The definition of food in the 1990 Act and other legislation regulating food safety and food standards was amended to reflect the new European food law framework on 7 December 2004.
	As the devolution settlement is fixed in part by reference to the scope of the 1990 Act as it stood on 1 July 1999, and as certain substances considered drugs and medicine under our domestic law now fall within the European food law framework, this technical measure is required to ensure that Scottish Ministers can continue to regulate food safety and food standard matters for Scotland in respect of all food within the new definition.
	The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, also asked why for transferred functions under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 there was an obligation to obtain the consent of the Secretary of State. He asked whether that meant that the powers were not actually devolved. Section 63 of the Scotland Act specifically envisages the transfer of functions to be exercised with the agreement of the Secretary of State.
	The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, raised general points about how the orders are handled. It is difficult to make such highly technical orders intelligible. He might like to think about how we can share them with the public before we introduce them in the House, as he suggested, and we certainly will. As the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, pointed out, these technical orders are complicated and challenging. However, we take on board the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan.
	The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, asked a similar question to that of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose: why is the agreement of the Secretary of State required for orders made by Scottish Ministers in relation to anti-terrorist traffic regulation orders? The Scotland Act specifically envisages the transfer of functions where they are to be exercised with the agreement of the Secretary of State when they relate to reserved matters. In matters of general policy—on roads, for example—the function is devolved. The noble Lord also asked whether the review of fire safety was happening at the same time, and by coincidence, as in England and Wales. The review is taking place at a similar time, as there are certain cross-border issues that are relevant to both the ODPM's Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order and the Scottish Executive's Fire Bill.
	The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, asked why the definition of "persons detained" was being changed, and about the intention of the changes to the definitions. The current definitions in the Scotland Act have become out of date, and the order seeks to ensure that the definitions are brought up to date to give full effect to the Act.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, asked what a fire service pensions order would do. The transfer of functions will enable Scottish Ministers to make detailed arrangements for one or more pension schemes for fire service staff. She went on to ask about the financial implications of such pensions. The answer is that there are no direct financial implications. Fire service pensions are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis by contributions from the local authority, employers and staff. The situation will not change because of the transfer of functions.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, also asked how often Scottish Ministers expect to exercise the ATRRO functions in Scotland. It is impossible to determine frequency. The Scottish Executive have advised that they do not believe that ATTROs will be used on anything like a regular basis in Scotland. Local roads authorities already have extensive power to make traffic regulation orders. An ATTRO would be used only in extreme circumstances, which, in all probability, would be sanctioned by the local road authority.
	The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, asked about the financial implications of the road traffic regulations power already exercised by Scottish Ministers under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The order simply serves to clarify their ability to exercise those powers for the purpose of countering vehicle-borne terrorist threats. The Scottish Executive do not expect to increase public spending and no transfer of funds is proposed in connection with the order.
	At least two noble Lords asked where the initiatives on these orders come from. They come from legislative proposals in the UK and Scottish Parliaments. The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, asked whether recent announcements on asylum and immigration override the Fresh Talent initiative. The Scottish Ministers have supported the recent announcements and have said that they believe that the Government's proposals should not impinge on Fresh Talent. As I said at the beginning, if I have missed anything out I will write to noble Lords.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Scotland Act 1998 (Modifications of Schedule 5) (No. 2) Order 2005

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 25 January be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2005

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 18 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at thirteen minutes after nine o'clock.